The IT Skeptic - CMDB

DevOps Configuration versus ITSM CMDB

skeptic — Sun, 03 Sep 2017 22:40:36 +0000

Devops configuration tools means something quite different to ITIL configuration tools (cmdb).

This blog first gathered its following by saying that cmdb is an unhealthy aspiration for nearly all organisations.

heretical views on ITIL Configuration Management

skeptic — Mon, 07 Jul 2014 05:33:01 +0000

Recently Stephen Mann had the temerity to suggest Dear #ITIL, Please Kill Off The Configuration Management "Process", a variant on the heresy I've been proposing since 2007. Stephen said:

Vendors love to promise to play nicely

skeptic — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 04:31:29 +0000

Hey, remember all the fine words about CMDBf? or networkedhelpdesk.org? Vendors love to promise to play nicely because it helps overcome buyer concerns and close the sales. But it is pretty rare for it to ever come to anything. SNMP was an exception. Don't fall for the sweet promises: whatever the vendors say, they won't love each other in the morning.

How to improve your service configuration data and what that means for CMDB

skeptic — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 18:55:24 +0000

A reader asked How do you maintain the information of your complex interlinked system?

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

skeptic — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 21:20:57 +0000

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 20:01:00 +0000

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 09:51:07 +0000

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 22:34:36 +0000

"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 17:36:54 +0000

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 21:47:44 +0000

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 20:04:13 +0000

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 — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 04:09:22 +0000

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 — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 05:55:01 +0000

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 — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 05:05:22 +0000

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.

What is the difference between CMS and SKMS?

TheITILWizard — Mon, 31 May 2010 01:08:48 +0000

Dear The
I am prepping to take ITIL v3 Intermediate- Rel, Control & Validation and am confused on the difference between CMS and SKMS. The Service Transition book gives me the impression that the CMS is only the data & information layer of the SKMS and therefore the knowledge processing layer and presentation layer are not in the scope of the CMS. Is this correct?

Beats Me

CMDB music to my ears

skeptic — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 07:55:26 +0000

Common sense is not very common. On fad topics like CMDB it is rarer still. So I don't expect to find it in spades on the site of one of ITIL's most avid cheerleaders, HP. But Jody Roberts is singing my kind of song...

A CMDB is like a Swiss bank account

skeptic — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 04:12:42 +0000

I have an analogy for CMDB - it is like a Swiss bank account. Allow me to paraphrase some of the conversations I've had around CMDB:

CMDB and CMS – the industry-created myth

skeptic — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 02:30:24 +0000

It is pernicious the way the vendors and analysts talk as if CMDB is a given. In fact it is more than a given, it is “the heart and soul of service management” apparently, according to an email about an itSMF Brighttalk. No it isn’t. 95% of sites don’t have a CMDB. Perhaps that explains why service management is so heartless and soulless. And now it is happening with CMS - which by the way doesn't exist. [Updated January 2010]

Microsoft make an even broader patent claim on CMDB

skeptic — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 01:48:15 +0000

The next time you feel even the faintest twinge of believing that Microsoft are on your side, ask them why they would be wanting to patent the concept of CMDB. To advance ITSM? To create a fair and open market? To increase healthy competition? Maybe Goooogle are exhibiting a few signs of evil but Microsoft hold the franchise.

Taking on the CMDB Deathstar

skeptic — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:15:38 +0000

Anyone who has read my posts on CMDB and those of Troy DuMoulin on that same topic might think we disagree and they'd be right... but only partly. There is a lot we DO agree on over CMDB. Nevertheless I look forward to some brisk debate at the Pink conference in February in Vegas.