a Corporate Asset Abbas Haider Ali, VP Product Strategy October 2 nd 2008 m a n a g e d o b j e c t s. c o m

Transcription

1 Transforming the CMDB into a Corporate Asset Abbas Haider Ali, VP Product Strategy October 2 nd 2008 The Business Service Management Company TM

2 Agenda Introduction CMDB 101 What is a CMDB (v2 and v3) Do I really need a CMDB? What s in it for me? How to spot a real CMDB vs. a knock-off Planning for a CMDB Strategy People Data Process Adoption Where other CMDB projects have failed Monolithic vs. Distributed CMDBs Practical guide to implementing a CMDB Use cases and ROI realized Discussion topics

3 Introduction Who is this Abbas guy? Pronounced Hay-der A-lee. Common errors: Hater-All, Hi-deer A-lie, Hader-all, or of course the popular, Ha-<mumble>

4 What is a CMDB? ITIL v2: A database that contains all relevant details of each CI and details of the important relationships between CIs. ITIL v3: A database used to store Configuration Records throughout their Lifecycle. The Configuration Management System maintains one or more CMDBs, and each CMDB stores Attributes of CIs, and Relationships with other CIs.

5 Seriously. What is a CMDB? It depends... Source of truth Encyclopedia for IT, and services it offers DNA map of IT environment Decision support tool Self-service application for IT knowledge. Use case(s)

6 Do I really need a CMDB? How up-do-date are the Visio diagrams on your walls? How many ypeople p are involved in SWAT meetings for P1 issues? Do many of your planned changes result have unexpected impacts? How well do you know the relationships between IT infrastructure elements and IT / Business services Do you spend a lot of time generating reports from different systems and stitching them together? How effectively can you verify that IT services meet design/regulatory standards? e.g. DR, license usage ratios, etc. Are you concerned about impact of rapidly changing technology in your environment? Virtualization, Green IT, <insert buzzword here>

7 How to spot a knock-off CMDB Requires a homogenous environment for integration Vendor lock-in anyone? Configuration management system by day, CMDB by night Not an unusual claim from element configuration management systems Only supports Extract-Transform-Load to populate a CMDB Someone quickly inherits data entry as a 2 nd job Inflexible schema Don t get talked out of having information you need in your CMDB It s your asset! Limited Federation capabilities Data sources WILL evolve over time; CMDB must be able to do the same Belief that the CMDB is just a big database It s not. It s an application.

8 Poll & Discussion Who has an operational CMDB (even if you don t call it that)? Are you happy with your CMDB? Why? Who s looking at a CMDB right now? Why? What is the root of your CMDB? Service Desk? Asset / Inventory? Discovery? Application dependency mapping?

9 Planning for a CMDB Strategy Have a clearly defined objective No definition = No recognizable value Select specific metrics wherever possible Prioritize services for initial phase Don t try to tackle everything at once Identify stakeholders / scope of users of CMDB Keep an eye on what you want to CMDB to support in the future Service oriented monitoring Service Catalog Automated impact analysis Examples (good and bad): Minimize impact of changes to top 5 business apps Merge asset management, application discovery data into single database Reduce MTTR by capturing multi-system and tribal knowledge into broadly accessible application

10 Planning for a CMDB People Project team / Owners Executive sponsor Project manager / Product manager Relationship manager CMDB admin Not a DBA. More like an application architect. Data providers / Contributors Select just enough data to meet the requirements Choose SMEs who know both front and back end of selected data sources Users / Consumers Identify the parties who MUST be able to use the CMDB for strategy/objectives to become reality Clearly note the backgrounds, skills, time available, etc. for user community Critical to selecting a CMDB interface

11 Planning for a CMDB - Data Keep objectives in mind and select minimum amount of data for persistence in CMDB, rest should be federated Build CI and CI attributes layout Physical configuration Location OS version and patches Next planned change Trouble tickets Build CI relationship layout Physical Logical Business services and processes Identify requirements for CI state Performance, availability, Create an Account Take Orders Verify Credit Internet Customer Ordering System Credit Card Processing Product Availability

12 Planning for a CMDB - Data Governance Reconciliation rules Which relationships should be prioritized Use layouts to identify data sources Test integrations early Record currency information for each source How frequently is this data updated? Identify gaps Need discovery, or is asset database complete? Application dependency mapping?

13 Planning for a CMDB - Process Review objectives and identify processes that benefit from interaction with CMDB Service Support Incident Mgmt Problem Mgmt Change Mgmt Release Mgmt CMDB Availability Service Level Mgmt Capacity Mgmt Continuity it Mgmt Service Delivery Configuration Mgmt Financial Mgmt For CMDB value to be recognized, existing processes have to change Deployment of new apps/services Analysis of scheduled changes Usage / configuration of monitoring systems CMDB itself should be subject to a review process on a regular basis Don t let process become a barrier to getting started

14 Planning for a CMDB Adoption Most challenging, and most overlooked part of most CMDB projects How is the casual CMDB user going to interact with it? Avoid software installation as much as possible Allow everyone to contribute Comments, point out errors, inconsistencies, missing information Mechanical Turk model Identify mavens in each community of CMDB users Examine company culture, risk, regulatory issues and select editing model for CMDB Wikipedia-like or strict governance/process Record all successes and share with CMDB user community Start a blog or newsletter Success breeds success

15 Planning for a CMDB Why CMDB Projects Fail Not uncommon to hear about 2 nd or even 3 rd attempts at CMDB No clear objective Field of CIs approach: If we build it, they will come Too broad, too deep, or both Poorly defined roles and responsibilities Bad data Inaccessible only a handful of people know how to use it Doesn t stay current

16 Monolithic vs. Distributed CMDBs Always tempting to grab all data from integrated data sources and store them in a giant database, just in case Far more susceptible to problems as underlying systems change or get replaced Much higher cost to architect, store, and operate Inflexible and hard to adapt to changing environment If CMDB usage become pervasive, expect an ecosystem to develop CMS Master CMDB CMDB Server Team Network Team Data Sources MOM CA Unicenter HP Service Desk Asset Mgmt EMC Smarts Alterpoint HP Service Desk Asset Mgmt

17 Monolithic vs. Distributed CMDBs Specialized CMDBs can be used by individual IT silos, business units, application teams Top level CMS can unify key information in support of a larger CMDB strategy Federation shouldn t be limited to traditional CMDB data sources must be able to link to other CMDBs Need to consider multi-vendor federation between different CMDBs

18 Practical Guide Selecting a CMDB Well executed planning stage should result in a clear list of musthave features Federation Synchronization Reconciliation Visualization / Ease of Use Interoperability

19 Selecting a CMDB Detailed Features

20 Practical Guide Selecting a Partner Don t reinvent the wheel Review experience Should have worked with CMDB software and integration points as well Ask for references In most cases CMDB vendors have services business Usual suspects in systems integrator space IBM Accenture CSC

21 Partner Example Managed Objects Strategy and Planning Specify Requirements Select Technologies Target Audience Objectives Measures for Success Identify Services CMDB High Level Design CMDB Depth CMDB Technology Automating Technology Build Train Document & Turnover Construction and Deployment ocu e t & u o e Ongoing Value / Improvement Communicate Value Improvement Plan

22 Partner Example Managed Objects Strategy/ Planning Project Kickoff Create General Counsel Team CMDB Vision Definition Define Benefits and Measures of Success CMDB Workshop Specify Requirements High Level CMDB Design Define Governance Requirements Define Service Catalog Requirements Define CI levels IT Service Model Define CI Relationships Define CI Attributes Design IT Service Model Blueprint Select Technologies Select CMDB Technology Select Technology for Population Select Technology for Auditing Constru uction and Depl loyment Create CI Lifecycle Mgmt Process Training for CMDB Technology Construct The CMDB Install CMDB Technology Populate CMDB Automate The CMDB Train the CMDB CM team Documentation Transfer Production Ready CMDB Ongoing Valu \ Improvemen e nt Implement Measures and Metrics Continuous Svc Improvement Plan Specify Requirements Construction of CMDB Modifications Test Documentation Transfer & User Training

23 Case Study of Financial Services - Overview Challenges Identify and resolve problems faster Complex problems, cross domains hard to get to root cause Poor communication with the business units Data sources identified for CMDB project IBM Netcool CA Spectrum EMC Smarts UCMDB HP Mercury Topaz / Sitescope 15+ internal databases CMDB vital statistics Greater than 2 million CIs More than 4 million CI relationships

24 Case Study of Financial Services - Benefits Express dependencies quickly and clearly for Outages, Break Fix Activities, Maintenance e.g. list all hosts for a telco switch, all users for a SAN Maintenance Interactions e.g. identify common components between a SAN upgrade and a Switch upgrade. Avoid un-expected interactions during multiple changes. Diversity and Bucketing o e.g. take a business flow and prove that their A and B side are diverse and have no single points of failure. Concentration Risk e.g. report on number of critical apps that are dependent on server X or Y. Infrastructure Domain Failures e.g. Construct and test theories around processes geography Identify dedicated di d servers that t have cross-bu dependenciesd Enable targeted infrastructure refresh e.g. identify non-standard versions of infrastructure and order by number and criticality of systems dependent on them. Provide information to help manage risk around upgrade plans.

25 Case Study of Insurance Carrier Overview Challenges Better understand planned and unplanned changes Enforce process adherence Changes frequently had unintended consequences; required multiple attempts to complete 60% of incidents resulted from planned changes Data sources identified for project Discovery y( (EMC Smarts ADM) Internally developed asset management system Tivoli TEC HP Mercury Topaz + Sitescope BMC Remedy and Bladelogic CMDB vital statistics

26 Case Study of Insurance Carrier Benefits Real-time visibility to planned and unplanned changes Clearly understand impact of proposed p changes Lower risk fewer outages Superior, always current documentation Reduced MTTR Much lower % of incidents with planned changes as root cause Availability of additional statistics to drive analytics for IT executive reporting

27 Measuring ROI Refer back to the original metrics identified during planning MTTR reduction / shorter outages Mean Time Between Outages (MTBO) increase Increase in successful change tickets Less total tickets Shorter maintenance windows Increased availability for critical services Reduction in software licenses Cost reductions from increased DC density or server consolidation Softer metrics also count Process improvement Increased productivity Shift from reactive to proactive operations Strategic projects vs. fixing broken things

28 CMDB Project Team s Work is Never Done Operational Efficiency Services Users Business Effectiveness

29 Q&A

30 Additional Resources CIO.com: Managed Objects Adds 'Facebook' Twist to CMDB ITSMWatch.com: 10 Tips for a Successful CMDB Project GRIDtoday: Virtual Management, Virtual Mess Data Center Journal: Myths of the CMDB Computerworld: How Much Is 'Just Enough' for a CMDB? Managed Objects Blog - BSM Communique

31 Transforming the CMDB into a Corporate Asset Abbas Haider Ali, VP Product Strategy October 2 nd 2008 The Business Service Management Company TM