The Value of Integrating Configuration Management Databases With Enterprise Architecture Tools

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1 Research Publication Date: 13 January 2011 ID Number: G The Value of Integrating Configuration Management Databases With Enterprise Architecture Tools Ronni J. Colville, Patricia Adams As configuration management database (CMDB) implementations mature and solve the initial problems they were implemented for, many organizations are beginning to address the needs of new constituencies, specifically enterprise architects. Enterprise architects want to leverage the "near" real-time view to build a comparative gap analysis to ensure standards are being adhered and to plan for future-state architecture. Key Findings An IT service view CMDB will become the trusted source for the IT service view that will be "leveraged" by many different tools across an enterprise including enterprise architecture (EA) tools to provide the near-real-time view of IT services. A CMDB is one valuable source of integrated information describing the current state of the data center infrastructure, and EA can profit by using this data and not reinventing it. Data normalization is a critical step to ensure that metamodels and naming conventions are synchronized between the two tools. Recommendations When selecting an EA tool, consider its ability to readily import information from your CMDB. Use that as your preferred source of information for current-state technology architecture information. Select different tools for EA information, and a CMDB for a (near) real-time application and IT service view repository. Encourage your EA and CMDB vendors to develop meaningful, productized integrations to the other solutions, rather than paying for integrations in a service implementation Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Gartner is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. or its affiliates. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without Gartner's prior written permission. The information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information and shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in such information. This publication consists of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice. Although Gartner research may include a discussion of related legal issues, Gartner does not provide legal advice o r services and its research should not be construed or used as such. Gartner is a public company, and its shareholders may include firms and funds that have financial interests in entities covered in Gartner research. Gartner's Board of Directors may include senior managers of these firms or funds. Gartner research is produced independently by its research organization without input or influence from these firms, funds or their managers. For further information on the independence and integrity of Gartner research, see "Guiding Principles on Independence and Objectivity" on its website,

2 STRATEGIC PLANNING ASSUMPTION(S) By 2016, 15% of mature organizations will integrate their IT service view CMDB with their EA tools, up from a modest 1% today. ANALYSIS EA tools and IT service view CMDBs serve different markets that address different user needs and business values. Although there are some overlaps among their use cases, they differ in the way in which they are primarily used: An EA tool is used to store, integrate and structure information related to EA. EA tools must also support the creation, collection, analysis and presentation of this information to meet stakeholder needs. IT service view CMDB tools are a special case of database that enables the configuration view of IT services and applications. CMDB tools will use integration, federation, reconciliation and normalization, along with modeling and visualization mapping, to enable decision support to improve change impact assessment and to do future planning and analysis across IT services and applications (see "Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Architecture Tools" and "IT Service View CMDB Vendor Landscape, 2009"). Enterprise architects should expect to leverage the information from a CMDB as a trusted source for current-state architecture information as it is deployed. While the tools for both are not new, they are still emerging and maturing in actual implementations. Enterprises should ensure that their selection criteria are weighted to match their specific environment and goals and understand how integration between them will be delivered. There Are Similarities and Differences In a number of respects, CMDBs and EA tools are similar. Both product types bring together information from a range of sources, with some tools having the ability to import data from hardware and software discovery tools, application design tools, data design tools, middleware, server directories, security directories, and network and system management tools. CMDBs and EA tools also store similar data, such as servers, desktops and applications, and have the ability to perform similar analyses on the data, including impact analysis. However, users of and stakeholders for these products differ in their goals and objectives, which leads to different requirements and expectations from the tools. The mission of EA is to improve alignment with and support of the business strategy. To achieve this, architects need the ability to integrate, manage and communicate information relating to business, information, technology and solutions, including applications. It is also valuable to relate this information not only to the business strategy, but also to a range of environmental factors, such as the needs of customers/constituents, competitor behavior, the regulatory environment and technology innovations. Although some current-state architecture information is needed, the emphasis is more on future-state architecture mapping out how the business, information, technology and solutions will relate to each other in the near future. See Note 1 for a partial list of EA vendors. A CMDB user, however, needs a cohesive and integrated view of IT services, and the components contributing to those services, to enable improved, more-reliable decision making for operational change. The goal is to improve the agility and availability of the IT service for the business. The consumers of this data can be any stakeholders who participate in the design of services, or business users who want to understand the impact of a change to their services, or Publication Date: 13 January 2011/ID Number: G Page 2 of 5

3 the data can be used for trending of problem isolation/troubleshooting to improve root cause analysis. The information managed by a CMDB is primarily related to the current state of IT services. See Note 2 for a list of IT service view CMDB vendors. The future-state information tends to be focused on the near term that is, weeks and months, rather than years, because its focus is more operational (versus future planning). Consequently, there are differences in functional capabilities and usage. Because architecture tools are primarily focused on strategy and related planning, they are less concerned with highly granular technology details and more concerned with relationships to other domains, such as business architecture and information architecture. For example, an architecture tool might record a server name, hardware make and model, and OS version and type. It might also record that this server hosts Application A, is used in Business Process B and, in turn, supports Business Strategy C. A CMDB, on the other hand, would provide a more granular view of the same server, along with the peer-to-peer and hierarchical relationships of the server to other configuration items (CIs) that comprise the IT service, to allow, for example, the impact assessment of rolling out a patch to a server or an enhancement to an application on to the IT service as a whole. CMDBs may also be used for midterm analysis planning (for example, the impact of rolling out a new OS across a set of Web servers), because they can show the potential impact of a change. However, this is operationally focused, rather than strategic planning, as is the case for EA. CMDB tools are intended to track the configurations of instances of infrastructure components, becoming the trusted source of integrated management data. Today, IT organizations that build CMDBs are typically storing 10% to 15% of configuration data for any particular CI and its attributes in a CMDB to establish the IT service view, and the rest of the data remains in the individual IT domains for the day-to-day needs (see "The What, Where and Why of Configuration Items in Your CMDB"). Bringing Them Together As IT organizations make progress with their CMDB implementations, establishing a trusted source of IT service configuration information, enterprise architects are reengaging with this initiative, recognizing that the CMDB contains data useful for their projects. The CMDB becomes a valuable tool that enterprise architects can use to compare the "what is" current-state view versus what "should be." This comparison can provide valuable analyses in future planning to better select and establish corporate standards that meet business requirements. Without an understanding of the gap between the standards set and what is actually being implemented, the standards gap will continue to widen, which truly inhibits IT from gaining agility improvements and cost reductions in manageability. Managing diversity must be a primary initiative for IT organizations. Complexity is the wedge that will continue to prevent IT from meeting business requirements. As this integration matures, another use case will be evaluating the impact of change at different levels. EA tools track the impact of change at a strategic level, and span the other three viewpoints of EA (business, information and solution architecture), which are driven by the business context (strategy). Tool Integration Is Emerging CMDBs populate the IT service model and views through integrations with multiple discovery sources, such as dependency mapping, provisioning tools or configuration tools. The data is then consolidated into a single location, the CMDB, for viewing. EA tools could directly integrate with the various discovery sources; however, this would not be an efficient way to view the data, and would require the EA tool to normalize the data. This would result in many integrations, instead of Publication Date: 13 January 2011/ID Number: G Page 3 of 5

4 having just one to a primary source, the CMDB, to pull a comprehensive IT service view from. In addition, the CMDB is trusted because it has change and configuration processes associated with the data integrity process, which not only ensures that normalization is accurate, but also addresses the currency and accuracy of the applications or IT service models. Unfortunately, today, EA and CMDB tools are just beginning to build integrations to each other. Currently, the integration is focused on comparing "inventories" of individual system standards (e.g., servers deployed versus server standards). While this is a good starting point, it is just that the real value will be when comparisons can be done that compare the entire IT service or application that is deployed with the architecture standards that were established. This integration is not widely available today. Because there are still no industrywide CMDB (and configuration management system [CMS]) standards, enterprises can expect one-off integrations between most common tools (e.g., HP and Troux Technologies). This is an opportunity for IT organizations to push their vendors to develop more standard APIs and deeper integrations that can move the service model, rather than just the CIs, across toolsets, and can be used by many vendors. Note 1 Partial List of EA Vendors Alfabet Avolution Casewise Troux Technologies IBM QualiWare Metastorm Note 2 Partial List of IT Service View CMDB Vendors BMC Software CA Technologies HP IBM Publication Date: 13 January 2011/ID Number: G Page 4 of 5

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