CMDBDiscover, model, map and visualize IT and business configuration itemsA CMDB, or a Configuration Management Database, is a critical part of delivering an application and services management solution. A CMDB provides a set of four critical functions: - Federation to integrate, link, and import data from third party configuration repositories
- Reconciliation to align and unify similar configuration items that appear with different names
- Synchronization to update the state of configuration items when they change at the source
- Mapping to create navigable relationships between configuration item dependencies
Practical CMDB systems include a central federated CMDB that collects configuration data from multiple operational CMDB repositories focused on different aspects of the operation, including service desk, performance/availability, business service and others. Foglight provides an Operational CMDB with capabilities optimized for application Service Level Management (SLM) and Business Services Management (BSM) purposes. - Have existing investments? If you have invested in a central federated CMDB already, Foglight will help you leverage that investment by feeding SLM and BSM data stored in its operational CMDB.
- Just beginning your CMDB strategy? Foglight can be a practical first step when performance/availability service levels of critical applications are most important to business success. This investment can then be leveraged as part of your evolving CMDB strategy.
Capabilities| Requirement | Quest Capabilities | | Device, Transaction, and Property CI Storage | Enable the storage of configuration items of various granularities. This includes network and server devices, applications, databases, and property values that exist on those systems. | | Communication- and Property-Based Relationship Mapping | Discover and track relationships between configuration items based upon their communication paths (a service chain of what talks to what) and by analyzing the values of property files to identify which system is configured to speak to other systems. | | Open Integration Architecture | Link to or import data from other configuration repositories along with integrating third party technology monitors to create a holistic view of SLA compliance. Quest's integration architecture is XML-based and makes use of a message bus to link together systems into an IT ecosystem. | | Automatic and Custom Reconciliation | Overcome the proliferation of naming conventions across technology monitors and organizations by centrally tying together detailed data stored throughout different systems. We rationalize the same instance of a component from different sources using internal analysis and user-provided input. | | Notification of Asset Changes | Proactively notify stakeholders of asset changes. Identify when an asset is modified, removed or added, and also assess the relationship impact of the change. From there, the appropriate notifications can be generated and the rollup service SLAs be altered to understand how this change impacts compliance. | | Identify Unauthorized Changes | Detect unauthorized changes to configuration items so you can automatically generate remediation workflows. Quest can help you set standards, parameters, and templates for the acceptable values of configuration items, such as property values. |
BenefitsQuest's CMDB capabilities enables you to: - Proactively prevent service degradations and outages of critical business systems and processes that span customer, partners and employees
- Quantify the business impact of IT performance
- Provide real time and historical ITIL compliance reporting of SLAs
- Facilitate added communication between IT and the business
- Utilize existing IT management platforms to deliver integrated SLM
- More effectively prioritize activities based upon business impact
- Leverage investments in the Federated CMDB and participate in an overall CMDB strategy
- Reduce the total cost of ownership for managing services
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