The IT Skeptic - Comments for "CA CMDBf paper oversells the CMDB Federation standard, as predicted"

poor interoperability

skeptic — Mon, 25 May 2009 09:49:00 +0000

Hi Peter

Any standard ontology, even assuming the vendors got together enough to make it happen which is unlikely given the CMDBf history, will only exist at external interfaces to the existing tools for many years to come. That is, they would only implement a translation layer to present a standardised external API. I know what it cost to re-engineer the database model within the CA Unicenter tools and they are never going to find a business case to do that again any time soon. So all the internal interfaces, reports etc would still use a non-standard ontology.

Put simply, nobody is going to solve the problem of poor interoperability. Any heterogeneous environment is going to appear as just that, heterogeneous. You either get in bed with one vendor or you live with it. All suggestions to the contrary from vendors are just sales crap. The opportunity to standardise IT operational tools was about twenty years ago.

New open source tools might be built to a standard and they might make inroads if the lower cost model is attractive enough, but the incumbent investment is huge - there'd be a lot of inertia. We'll be stuck with the existing tools for a long time...

Not a silver bullet, but...

Peter Brooks — Mon, 25 May 2009 06:29:56 +0000

You're right, this initiative does not solve the problem. It does, though, illustrate that Vendors are aware that Customers have been having a problem with poor interoperability for several years.

The solution has been well known since before this initiative was started and involves working towards a standard Service Management ontology. Let's hope that customers insist on it.

FUD you!

John Worthington aka MySvcMon — Wed, 20 May 2009 21:13:35 +0000

I think I may have had the same feeling when I read this White Paper. Of course I admittedly did not understand some of the techno-speak, including some within your post --- but I do know this; all the big gorillas have a vision. (Some have a scheme, but when it comes to the big gorillas it's the same thing). This is FUD, pure & simple.

What disturbs me most about this is that the light many IT organizations are seeing is not nirvana --- it's a virtual freight train heading right at them at very high speed speed. At the same time we nit-pick about CMDB/CMS/SKMS, (even PMDBs) the reality is we have static data and lots of workflow automation. (I could rant on about the BUSiness' inward focus on workflow, but this is about IT.)

The result is 5-year technical 'roadmaps' that promise a vision of nirvana; IT must understand that tomorrow's always a day away...be honest, does more workflow (as a result of automation) really result in simpler processes? Vendors are vendors. I'm not suggesting they are liars, but they DO have an agenda which may (or may not) map well with your objectives (or timeframe!).

I also am not at all sure it's easier for one of the big gorillas to 'integrate' multiple real-time monitors (from their latest feeding frenzy) into a seamless, intelligent, and end-to-end real-time performance monitoring solution for virtual, n-tier infrastructures ---- than it is to do some integration of a point product to ticketing systems. However if you buy into that vision, well then that's your business.

I may not be the geek here, but I know when I see FUD it usually means WAIT (until I can get something that comes to the MINIMUM you need for us to win).

I say, FUD you!

John M. Worthington
MyServiceMonitor, LLC