Service Asset and Configuration Management for Beginners
What is this all about ?
Most of the ITIL Processes do something with a “thing”.
- the “thing” is requested
- the “thing” is built
- the “thing” is deployed
- the “thing” causes an error…
- the “thing” is changed
- the “thing” is deployed (again)
- the “thing” decommissioned
- ....
It is incredible (and it were tremendously inefficient) that all these ITIL Processes have their own set of “things” as in reality they care about the same IT Objects and one big benefit of ITIL is that you will begin to have a more overall view of your Infrastructure.
Service Asset and Configuration Management provides these “things” (called Configuration Items (CI)) and also guaranties a certain quality level of them.
I often explain Service Asset and Configuration Management with the analogy of a company selling shoes. The business is to sell shows BUT you have to maintain an accouting for regulatory reasons, to manage the business, for your stakeholders... Configuration Management is the “accounting system” of your infrastructure.
What is a CI / Configuration Item ?
Answer for beginners: You can imagine a CI (Configuration Item ) as any IT Object (e.g. desktop, server, printer, piece of code, script, operating system, database system, business application) which is managed with the Service Asset and Configuration Management processes. Each CI also has relations to other CIs, the consideration of relations is vital. (see the Q & A section for more on this topic).
What are the Service Asset and Configuration Management Processes ?
- Management + Planning
- Identification
- Control
- Verification + Audit
- Status Accounting
Can you explain the Service Asset and Configuration Management Processes ?
| Management + Planning |
Planning and defining the purpose, scope, objectives, policies and procedures, and the organisational and technical context, for Configuration Managemen. See our blog: what does it look like and best practice
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| Identification |
Selecting and identifying the configuration structures for CIs, including attributes, their allowed or mandatory interrelationships etc. It also includes allocating identifiers and version numbers for CIs, labelling each item, and how the processes of managing them are implemented for specific CI types. See our blog: what does it look like |
| Control |
Ensuring that only authorised and identifiable CIs are accepted and recorded, from receipt to disposal. It ensures that no CI is added, modified, replaced or removed without appropriate controlling documentation, e.g. an approved Change request, and an updated specification. This means that formal, compliant change control is applied to every CI ! (Describes INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE for CIs . See our blog: what does it look like and flowchart
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| Status Accounting |
Includes all reporting on Cis. Most important the impact analyis but also the reporting of all current and historical data concerned with each CI throughout its life cycle. This enables Changes to CIs and their records to be traceable, e.g. tracking the status of a CI as it changes from one state to another for instance 'under development', 'being tested', 'live', or 'withdrawn'. (Describes SELECT on CIs). See our blog: what does it look like and flowchart
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| Verification and Audit |
Guarantee correctness of CIs. A series of reviews and audits to check that they are correctly recorded in the Configuration Management System. For physical Cis this is normaly done via a comparison of the content of the CMS with what has been discovered with the discovery tool and discrepancies are listed. (Describes how QA is done for CI). See out blog: what does it look like and flowchart
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When / how often are the Service Asset and Configuration Management Processes executed?
Most of Management + Planning is commonly defined with the first project needing CIs. Identification is repeated for each class of objects to be newly brought into the Configuration Management System (e.g repeated every quarter) and Control, Status Accounting, Verification and Audit on the other hand are operational processes, executed several times each day and night.
Can you show me an analogy for better understanding of the Service Asset and Configuration Management Processes?
| SACM Discipline |
A shoe store |
| Management + Planning |
What do we manage (sell ; have to account for). What are the standard processes for control (shall we buy a new cash regisitry system?), status accounting, verification and audit. Who is responsible for what ? |
| Identification |
IIf we start selling children shoes. What do we have to consider? Do we need a new cash registry? Which information need to be scanned (pinned on the shoes) , how is the order / re-order process? How do we run inventory (similar as with man’s shoes?) do we need additional reports? Does it make sense to start capturing relations? e.g. between shoes bought the same time? (two pairs for mamy, one pair for Dani and one pair for Uma? (what benefit in status accounting do we have if we capture this new information?) |
| Control |
What is the process
- Of booking a pair of shoes out (scan?)
- How is a shoe delivery booked into the system ?
- How do we handle it if someone returns a pair of shoes ?
- How do we book stolen shoes?
- What do we do if we return not sold shoes to the producer?
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| Status Accounting |
Run reports
- How many shoes (should be) on store
- What has to be reordered
- Which are the best sold shoes (which size?)
- Which are the most returned shoes ?
- What is the most popular producer?
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| Verification and Audit |
Execute inventory
- Cash registry log vs. real money and credit cart receipts
- Count shoes vs. inventory on the cash registry
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A lot of people stress the importance of relations as being a vital part of configuration management. That is true and in this example not considered perfectly accurate.
What is the difference between Configuration Management and Service Asset and Configuration Management ?
Answer for beginners: In general it describes the same. Configuration Management is an ITIL V2 term and Service Asset and Configuration Management is an ITIL V3 term. The most important difference is that in ITIL V2, the intention was, that all CIs are stored in one single database (Configuration Management Database (CMDB)) whereas in ITIL V3 the store for CIs is called Configuration Management System (CMS) and is a more logical construct; therefore can consist of more than one database.
What is the difference between Configuration Management Database (CMDB) and Configuration Management System (CMS)?
Configuration Management Database (CMDB) is an ITIL V2 term and Configuration Management System (CMS) is an ITIL V3 term. The most important difference is that CMDB describes on single database as store for all CI’s whereas the CMS is a more logical construct; can therefore contain more than one database. This change was necessary as a lot of ITIL users complained that it is not realistic, not cost-efficient, a far to big risk to have all in one CMDB as most of them had already existing inventory solutions. ITIL V3 discipline Service Asset and Configuration Management also describes how such a collection of CMDBs could be handled; Buzzword here: Federation (CMDBf). This are plans and specificiations only. Non of the vendors will deliver tool support for federation before Q4.2009.
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