CMDB is a database that contains all relevant information about the components of the information system used in an organization's IT services, and the relationships between those components. The CMDB provides an organized view of data and a means of examining that data from any desired perspective. It’s a data map of the physical reality of IT infrastructure.
CI (Configuration Item) are components of an information system kept in a CMDB. It is the principle data in a CMDB and all other data is used to support and descript this primary dataset. CI can be any conceivable IT component, including software, hardware, documentation, and personnel, or any combination of them. The processes of configuration management seek to specify, control, and track configuration items and any changes made to them in a comprehensive and systematic fashion, as well as relations between different CIs.
Asset is an item that has intrinsic value and as such is important to an organization. Assets are dealing with the lifecycle and financial aspects of an item. Often CIs are called assets, because in a sense, they really are assets. However, in CMDB model CI is more than just an asset. It’s an entity that has relations to other CIs. Goal of the CI is to describe item in a functional and impact level required for the delivery of an IT service.
Relation is any physical or logical connection between two CI. Relation is described with both direct relationship description and reversed relationship (example: CI1 uses CI2, CI2 used by CI1).
CI Type is a primary descriptor of the CI. Based on the CI Type, CI holds different sets of data. For instance CI items that belongs to Hardware CI type will hold all different additional sets of data compared to CI that belongs to Service CI type.
Organization is a user of CMDB. It can be established on company level or any other organizational sublevels.
The CMDB allows you to plot out your entire IT infrastructure. This involves entering all physical and non-physical components of your IT into the CMDB as CIs and then creating relationships between each of the components. By keeping your CMDB up-to-date, you can easily see a complete map of your network from the perspective of a single component. This makes it easy to predict the impact of component failures and to build disaster recovery plans. You can also see what's at stake any time a problem is reported within your network.
The four major tasks of configuration management are:
•Identification of CIs to be included in the CMDB.
•Control of data in such a way that it can be changed only by authorized individuals
•Status maintenance, which involves ensuring that current status of any CI is consistently recorded and kept updated.
•Verification, through audits and reviews of the data to ensure that it is accurate.
NSP CMDB will introduce certain terms that will be used in a project design.
CI Group is a grouping container for CI. It can be any grouping criteria users can find useful. CI can be either member of some group or standalone (Group is not defined for given CI). CI group is purely user defined and managed.
Department is another grouping container. It has more organizational meaning on the organization level. It holds CI based on departmental organization. As is in CI groups, CI can be a member of certain department, but is not obligatory.
CI Component is a hardware part of hardware CI, but it’s not a CI itself. For instance, RAM memory, if installed in a computer, is a component, but it can’t be CI, because it’s just a part of the already defined CI (computer). On the other hand, if RAM memory is not installed in a certain computer but kept as a spare, it can be described as CI.
Product is any software or hardware product that can be applied as a CI. CI is a concrete instance of the given product.
Manufacturer is a company that produced given product.
Vendor is a company that supply products or deliver services.
CI Function is a description of a functionality performed by given CI.
CI Impact is a categorization of the impact level that certain CI have on organization.
License is a software license associated with a given software CI. It’s described by type, time validity and available installations for a given license.
Installation is a software running on given hardware CI using certain license.
CI Expense is a monetary cost for certain CI besides purchasing price. Any type of additional service, maintenance or repair that is not covered by SLA can be categorized as expense.
Depreciation a reduction in the value of an asset over time. Depreciation is defined by annual deduction of value of an asset in percentage of the book value, over a depreciation period.