We know, that within these three areas clearly defined controles are applied and enforced. So to speak, strict Configuration Management is applied – only difference – the Configuration Items (CI) are not IT Objects but screws, engines, pharmaceuticals, money. (more…)
See more here: What is the difference between an asset and a CI? and Is a person a CI?
Federated Configuration Management Database
A CMDB enables organizations to provide their IT objects, relations and attributes in an up-to-date and accurate state. Since organizations often maintain several CMDBs with different contents, there is a need to have an integrated perspective to all the data (now its no longer one single CMDB but a CMS (Configuration Management System), a new term introduced by ITIL V3). That’s where the federated approach comes into place. Federation can either be fulfilled by physically replicate data from one CMDB (master) to another (slave), or by just providing an integrated view to the data from several CMDBs in a visualization layer. A CMDBf concept has to consist of the following considerations:
Define the master source for every type of object. One source has to be the only master whereas other sources (slaves) can consume the objects from the master.
Ensure all participating sources are subject to the data manipulation conditions given by the CMDBf concept to be able to provide consistent data.
Define naming conventions which are binding across the different sources in order to be in a position to relate identical objects to each other.
Work out a unique key concept which allows you to uniquely identify objects across the different sources as well as over time.
The CMDB Federation (CMDBf) working group was founded in April 2006, and today consists of industry leaders BMC Software, CA, Fujitsu Limited, HP, IBM and Microsoft. More information can be found at http://www.cmdbf.org/
Well, it depends. If you imagine an IT Object, for example a server, there are different activities you do with this object:
If you group these aspects you recognize two main areas:
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
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”.
Am 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.