CMDB

CMDB is like a linked digital phonebook, and just as pointless for most

skeptic — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 15:20:57 -0600

In the old days a phonebook was a list of names and numbers, like an asset database.

Now we have numbers on phones, with people search. Say I want to ring Gary at Safeness. I don't have a number for him but I know his company, and for others at that company I have the switchboard number. Wouldn't it be cool if people were linked to a company entity and we recorded the company numbers once for that entity so it could be found for everyone in that company?

Now we have the analogous equivalent of a CMDB (or a normalised database for the old farts amongst us).

Refining the Five Percent Club

aroos — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 14:01:00 -0600

A guest post today from Aale Roos:

Knowing how Rob loves the CMDB ;) I thought I should publish my latest survey results here instead of ITSM Portal.

ITIL configuration guinea pig wanted

skeptic — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 02:51:07 -0700

Wanted: an IT organisation to test the hypothesis that improving configuration procedures (and team) with some proper cultural change (not decree) will lead to the same benefits as implementing a CMDB, but at much lower cost.

CMDB: what does it really mean

skeptic — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 15:34:36 -0700

"CMDB" means many things to many people. When the IT Skeptic debates against "CMDB" or "CMS" what I really mean is "that huge IT Monument to unnecessary technology which is known to the vendors and their sucker buyers as CMDB". Unfortunately the more precise label is a bit ponderous :) The term CMDB which was originally a label for a Generic Thing has become hijacked to be the label for a Great Big Technology.

CMDB is crazy talk

skeptic — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 10:36:54 -0700

The CMDB debate seems endless, sisyphean. The analysts promise "Well OK CMDB crashed and burned but CMS is different. Really." The vendors know they're flogging a dead horse and they'd much rather prance about the service catalogue instead, but they have to get their R&D money back so they bang the CMDB drum. Here's my case summarised again (under recent provocation), for those who haven't read it before.

Configuration Management is a process not a thing

skeptic — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 15:47:44 -0600

ITIL defines Configuration Management as the delivery of information but then spends most of its pages describing Configuration Management as the maintenance of a static repository of data, not an active process of serving that data to others. Let's get it clear: Configuration Management is a process not a thing

The Five-Percent Club

skeptic — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 14:04:13 -0600

The Five-Percent Club is that elite group of the (less than) 5% of organisations who actually succeed in justifying and implementing a CMDB, or the more modern and equally nutty CMS.

A review of The CMDB Imperative

skeptic — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 22:09:22 -0600

I didn't read The CMDB Imperative (that's the second time I started a review with that idea). I didn't read it because (a) you've got to be pretty keen on CMDBs to stick with the dry content (although the authors do as good as anyone could to make it palatable) and (b) because I fundamentally disagree with it, which dragged me down after a while. I got to about page 180 and then...

BMC are at the old bait and switch again over CMDB

skeptic — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:55:01 -0600

Chokey chokes! Chokey the Chimp hasn't seen such a pile of Crap in a long time. Take a look at this classic piece of vendor double-talk. Tell them the joys of owning a MacLaren F1, then describe the value your Mum derived from buying a new Daihatsu to get to the shops. Yours for only a million dollars! In fact this article isn't even describing a MacLaren: it is describing a Jetsons air-car with virtual hyperdrive.

The CMDB is dead

skeptic — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 23:05:22 -0600

With a headline like that I had to read the CMDB is dead, long live the CMDB. Whilst much of it speaks a language I don't understand, the bits that are in English I liked...mostly. There is an unhealthy affection for DevOps and similar web-cowboy-waffle, and too much readiness to fix the problem of CMDB by throwing yet more technology at it, but the parts informed by past experience of CMDB were a voice of common sense.