ITIL missed the opportunity to provide an easy to use, pragmatic, best practice model. But customer demand, project failures, retrials, re-thinking of affected show that such an easy to use, transparent and simple model is the key for successful configuration management projects. We propose a “Service Configuration Tree” Model as a sound base to work with. (more…)
Archive for the ‘Definitions (CI, Service Asset, Asset…)’ Category
Service Configuration Tree – the key to success
Tuesday, March 29th, 2011Third time is a charm! don’t do top-down, neither bottom-up but tree by tree
Friday, October 15th, 2010Some companies started their Configuration Management Database (CMDB) to be filled bottom up, starting with the physical IT CI classes like server hardware and then move on to server operating system, middleware…. Others approached the opposite way, they started with their logical environment IT CI classes like: IT-Services, applications, products. Both procedures figure challenges when it comes to connecting physical CIs with logical CIs (or vice versa). The best way to go on is to explicitly define a configuration tree (you also hear the term service tree) and start manage the tree and no longer concentrate on distinct CI-Classes.
What is a CI?
Sunday, June 20th, 2010You can imagine a CI (Configuration Item ) as any IT Object (e.g. desktop, server, printer, piece of code, script, operating system, database system, service, business application) which is managed by the Configuration Management processes. Each CI also has relations to other CIs, the consideration of relations is vital.
See more here: What is the difference between an asset and a CI? and Is a person a CI?
What is the difference between an Asset and a CI?
Wednesday, August 19th, 2009Well, it depends. If you imagine an IT Object, for example a server, there are different activities you do with this object:
- *you need money to buy it (you better also have this money in the budget)
- *you install software and applications on your server
- *you need to maintain a history of installation/upgrade activities
- *you might want to calculate depreciation
- *you want to know what incidents and problems were related to your server
- *you need to make sure that you know where the server is located, that there is enough power in the room
- *your server should be insured
- *you want to apply patches and upgrades in controlled manner; you better not just boot it….
- *you will protect your server against attacks / unauthorized usage
- *and some day you need to pay for disposal of the server
- *….
If you group these aspects you recognize two main areas:
- financial control / financial risk (budget, purchase, license, insurance…)
- operational control (installations/ upgrades/ changes/ deployments/ incidents/ problems )
When you manage your IT Object more in the aspect of financial value, you usually apply Asset Management functionality on it so in this terminology you could refer to the IT Object as an Asset; strictly speaking it is an IT Asset as there are also Financial Assets in your company…
And when you use (or need to control) your IT Object in a more operational management (Service Management) relevant way you usually name and maintain it as a Configuration Item (CI).
Conclusion is, that an IT Asset and a CI can point to the exact same IT Object, they only enlight different aspects of it. In this case, the Asset usually comes to life before the CI and lifes longer than the CI. This because
- a) you need money to buy the server; and only after installation you can offer services on it and
- b) the moment no more services run on the server it may still cost money; at least for disposal…
Of course it is possible that you manage IT Objects as assets only because you have no (or not yet) urge to also control them for service management) or you handle IT Objects as CIs only (because your are not interested to manage the financial / value aspect…) .
So, the answer to the question: “What is the difference between IT-Asset and a CI” is: “That depends on what do you want to do with the IT Object”.
Is a person a CI?
Thursday, March 19th, 2009Am I a CI?
Phislosphical answer: The question is put wrongly. I am a human being, woman, mother, sportswoman, worker, confguration management specialist… The same is true for servers: a server is a server is a server is a server. It does never transform in a kind of metamorphose process into a CI-thing, doesn’t it? So, why don’t we ask the question this way: “Does metadata of me (e.g. personal record) can be looked at as a CI? ”
ITIL answer: Service Asset and Configuration Management Documentation talks about ”CIs” like this: Any component that needs to be managed in order to deliver an IT Service. Information about each CI, including its relations, is recorded in the Configuration Management System and is maintained throughout its Lifecycle by Configuration Management. CIs are under the control of Change Management. CIs typically include IT Services, hardware, software, buildings, people, and formal documentation such as Process documentation and SLAs.
With this definition I could answer the question: “”Does metadata of me (e.g. personal record) can be looked at as a CI? “ with yes, do you agree? But are you satisfied? Below more argumentation.
Answer to work with: After four years of (Service Asset and) Configuration Management and its processes we came to a simple definition. A CI is a “thing” (with relations) which is managed with the three operational Service Asset and Configuration Management Processes (in total there are 5 processes in SACM, but the other two are more set up SACM and integration into SACM related) . That means,
a) if you maintain the “thing and its relations” according to your standardized configuration control process (which normally is attached to a change management process)
b) if all reports delivered for the “thing and its relations” comply with the standardized configuration status accounting process
c) if you guarantee quality for the “thing and its relations” with the standardized configuration verification and audit process
Then we name it CI. If it is ”discovered” with a discovery tool but not under control, we name it “discovered” IT Object.
Back to the question: ” Does metadata of me (e.g. personal record) can be looked at as a CI? ” Do you expect your company to apply the standardized Service Asset and Configuration Management processes to personal data? I hope that my company applies standardized processes on these data B U T I suppose its far more complex. I know that in my company inventory data of people is managed with a distinct HR application including control, reporting and quality assurance but I suppose not only according to the standardized ITIL Service Asset and Configuration Management Processes but according to other far more complex (regulatory) requirements and the data is stored somewhere else. What would be the benefit if this data were at least integrated into the Configuration Management System. And now we come to the point! That is going to deliver added value: person as owner of Ci’s , person as user of CI’s , person as being impacted when CI fails, etc etc etc. So with all that in mind, I thing I can argue and say. YES it makes sense to look at metadata of a person like a CI, but I have to accept that it will always be managed a bit differently, not like all the other IT-CIs.