CM Proposal

This page is a Configuration Management Proposal for a company looking to more tightly integrate their Configuration Management team which includes their CMDB and their Software Configuration Management team.

Historically, the CM team focused on data center change management support. The SCM focused on software development support. CM developed the CMDB focused almost entirely on ITIL. SCM created a CMDB for middleware and internally developed applications.

Because these teams were in different organizations, the teams never had the management support to better collaborate. So, major gaps in processes and data were never addressed from a unified CM/SCM view point.

The reorganization of Configuration Management and Software Configuration Management teams into one organization will allow the teams to fix these gaps in our CM/SCM processes and CMDB data.

The integration of the CM and SCM team will allow us to better serve the organization.

Collapsing all the enterprise CMDB maybe the desired goal, but may not be achievable in our current state. It may require a staged approach to consolidate all enterprise CMDB data into one source of truth.

Note, that most CMDB experts think it is unrealistic to think an organization can have one all encompassing CMDB. It might be more doable to simply better report from the different databases.

• All areas that use discovery technology or use CIs as their core data use the CMDB or the same conventions, e.g., application, network and enterprise monitoring.
• CIs are owned by the person responsible for their performance in production. Ownership means they are responsible for configuration data integrity
• The CMDB is used daily by almost every function in IT and becomes a shared trusted information source which can reduce search time and can highlight incremental changes
• As Incidents are resolved, solutions should be stored in the CMDB
• CMDB Administrator is only responsible for a limited set of support processes. Otherwise, the CMDB will be bottlenecked by the skill set and workload of the CMDB Administrator
• Discoveries source most of the CMDB
• Deployments automatically update the CMDB

Instead of setting a 6 month plan and a 12 month plan, maybe the plan should be broken down into requirements gathering and implementation.

The first 6 months will be a time to gather requirements for the new team. Although, both teams will continue to perform the services they provide now, it will take some time to gather new requirements for the newly formed team.

Even though, the teams would or could remain separate, it would be a team building exercise to perform a Configuration Management SWOT that includes all of our combined services.

After the SWOT is complete, start the implementation of the SWOT findings.

• Centralized configuration database(s) = less maintenance costs, common APIs for better inter-operability, etc...
• Centralized management, decentralized updates = more accurate information, common processes, structured CMDB updates
• More agile to meet infrastructure and auditing requirements, by leveraging Enterprise Tooling and Agile development methodologies.

Configuration Management CM is a process model established to maintain the consistency and integrity of a system or software product throughout it's lifecycle.

CM Audit This page outlines a CM Audit performed by an internal audit team. A CM Audit ensures that functional and physical attributes are accounted for in accordance with the requirements an applications or system.

Configuration Management Database CM Database, or otherwise known as CMDB, is a central repository for all configuration items that comprise an information system. A key goal of a CMDB is to understand the relationships between application and system components and track their configurations.

Configuration Management Plan This is a sample CM Plan. This CM Plan is a template to use for putting together a CM Plan. Feel Free to use this as a template for your own CM Plan.

CM Proposal This page is a CM Proposal for a company looking to more tightly integrate their CM team which includes their CMDB and their SCM Team.

Configuration Management Salaries CM Salaries - This page is dedicated to publishing salary information about CM Salaries.

Configuration Management Software CM Software are the Configuration Management Tools and Utilities used to create records, track changes, manage and control your environments. CM, is a process model established to maintain the consistency and integrity of a system or software product throughout it's lifecycle.

SCMWise Software Configuration Management SCMWise is dedicated to SCM. This site is a central repository for the collection of best practices, processes, methodologies and tools that surround SCM.