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Harness Configuration Management Superpowers
Build a CMDB around the IT services that are most important to the organization.
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Contributors
- Brett Johnson, Senior Consultant, VMware
- Yev Khovrenkov, Senior Consultant, Solvera Solutions
- Larry Marks, Reviewer, ISACA New Jersey
- Darin Ohde, Director of Service Delivery, GreatAmerica Financial Services
- Jim Slick, President / CEO, Slick Cyber Systems
Your Challenge
- Unplanned downtime is your nemesis. It is largely due to poor change management.
- Large investment: Building a configuration management database (CMDB) takes a large amount of effort, process, and expertise.
- Tough business case: Configuration management doesn’t directly provide value to the business, but it requires a lot of investment from IT.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- Configuration management (CM) will fail without people and process. It’s too easy to focus only on data and tools.
- Start small. Scope creep is a serial killer of configuration management projects.
- Train people on how to analyze the data. The value of CM comes from the knowledge it creates. Make it as easy as possible to generate that knowledge.
Impact and Result
- Supercharge mission-critical IT services. Reinforcing a revenue-generating or high-priority IT system makes it easier to get buy-in from the business.
- Empower core IT processes such as quality management, asset management, and service performance measurement. Configuration management is about more than just doing change management more effectively.
- Harness the power of robots. Create a plan to automate CMDB data population – manually populating data is expensive, threatens accuracy, and forbids currency.
Start here – read the Executive Brief
Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should build a CMDB, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.
1. Plan your configuration model
Follow Info-Tech’s approach to determining the scope of your configuration management project and to building a configuration management team.
2. Design your CMS and CMDB
Design the data model for your CMDB and build a plan to populate the data.
3. Define your configuration management roadmap
Build a roadmap for supporting your in-scope services in your CMDB, for supporting additional services, and for realizing the expected benefits.
Guided Implementations
This guided implementation is a nine call advisory process.
Guided Implementation #1 - Plan your configuration model
Call #1 - Identify current state and drivers.
Call #2 - Discuss required CM roles and processes.
Call #3 - Plan a working group.
Guided Implementation #2 - Design your CMS and CMDB
Call #1 - Design a data model.
Call #2 - Discuss discovery tools.
Call #3 - Design processes to maintain your CMS.
Guided Implementation #3 - Define your CM roadmap
Call #1 - Identify a realistic timeline.
Call #2 - Build an audit plan.
Call #3 - Build an organizational change and training plan.
Book Your Workshop
Onsite workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost onsite delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Module 1: Assemble Your Team of Superheroes
The Purpose
Assemble a team of people under the helm of the super configuration manager.
Key Benefits Achieved
Agreed direction and scope for configuration management.
Activities
Outputs
Define key terms.
Agree on the scope of configuration management.
- In-scope business-facing services
- In-scope IT processes
- Unified understanding of configuration management
Assess configuration management maturity.
- Configuration Management Maturity Assessment results
- Configuration management process goals
- Critical success factors and key metrics
Define the role of configuration manager.
- Configuration Management Policy
- Configuration Manager Job Description
Identify the roles and responsibilities involved in supporting configuration management.
- Configuration management responsibility matrix
- Description of roles involved in configuration management
Module 2: Design the CMS and CMDB
The Purpose
Identify a structure for the CMDB, and develop an achievable, realistic plan for populating it.
Key Benefits Achieved
Designed configuration management data model and a plan to populate and maintain the CMDB.
Activities
Outputs
Map out the systems involved in core business-facing services.
- Topology diagrams of in-scope business-facing services
Design a data model for these services.
- Data model template
- Mapping of in-scope services, applications, infrastructure, and systems into the data model
- Identification of configuration items
Identify requirements for discovery tools.
- List of requirements for a discovery tool
Create a data population strategy.
- Data population strategy
Identify IT management processes that interface with configuration management.
- List of interfacing IT processes
Define processes to maintain the configuration management systems.
- Process workflows for a selection of interfacing IT processes
- Configuration Management Standard Operating Procedures
Design dashboards and reports to aid with CMDB maintenance.
- List of dashboards for managing the configuration management process
Module 3: Ensure That the CMDB Is Usable and Trusted
The Purpose
Design a campaign to get IT’s support and to squash bugs from your configuration management system.
Key Benefits Achieved
Define your auditing approach, develop a training plan, and identify a timeline for additional services.
Activities
Outputs
Identify next steps.
- Tasks related to configuration management
Develop an audit plan.
- Requirements for configuration management auditing
- Timeline for auditing the CMS and CMDB
Identify required skills for configuration management.
Develop a skills acquisition plan.
- Configuration management skills plan
Develop a communication plan.
- Communication Plan
- Configuration Management Project Charter
