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Structured Social Networking for Your ITIL CMDB

June 25, 2008 · Filed Under IT Tools

Managed Objects has introduced myCMDB. A mixture of social networking and Web 2.0 to help business customers get more out of their configuration management databases (CMDB).

With more IT departments using ITIL based CMDBs to manage their IT infrastructure, Managed Objects has put a new face on an often complex system. The web based application uses role-based “communities” where users can easily view and interact with CMDB data and other CMDB users.

CMDB Meets Facebook

Each CMDB community consists of logically related CMDB data – grouped by function, role, class, or geography. IT or business users subscribe to CMDB communities – usually based on their specific business responsibility. Within each community, users can quickly and intuitively search and report on CMDB information.

By combining Facebook™ interactivity, Wikipedia™ information quality management, and Google™ search-model capabilities — the CMDB is transformed into a more valuable, user-friendly environment which, in turn, drives greater usage across the enterprise. And when more users contribute to the CMDB, it naturally becomes a more accurate representation of the actual IT infrastructure.

myCMDB at a Glance

Easy to define user communities provide meaningful views of CMDB data
Role-based user profiles personalize the community experience
Intelligent, refine-able, and repeatable search to quickly retrieve CMDB information
Enhanced data input through pre-defined templates and forms
Integrated CIM (Common Information Model) and policies enforce governance
Pre-defined, community specific reporting and analytics – or add your own
Modeling environment for impact and dependency analysis
Integrates easily with existing change control systems
A common platform for ready communication with other community members

myCMDB is an innovative way to take the often complex and large CMDB, with thousands of configuration items and put them into an easy to use interface. This will have particular appeal as IT works to get non-IT people to use the CMDB.

This is an interesting vision for CMDB. Many IT departments are realizing CMDBs do not require a full ITIL framework and can be very beneficial. Still most struggle in their infancy. In the future I think the CMDB concept will offer a way to tie all of the data together and present it in a way that it can be easily maintained and used by the entire business structure.

For more information about Managed Objects and their Business Service Management products visit the Managed Objects web site.