BMC, Fujitsu, HP, and IBM have teamed up for a configuration management database project.
A CMDB is a repository that is recommended by IT infrastructure library (ITIL), the now widely-adopted framework for best practices around IT service delivery and support. The UK Office of Government Commerce (OGC) first developed ITIL best practices in the late 1980s, with the objective of improving the efficiency and effectiveness of government procurement.
The CMDB is aimed at keeping system administrators and service desk staff up to date on the assets they are trying to manage, or problems they are trying to solve. A major problem is that, in most organizations, if the information is stored at all, it probably is held in multiple, vendor-specific repositories that are difficult, if not impossible, to synchronize. One system may store desktop and laptop client images or configurations, while other systems may be devoted to servers, storage pools or networks.
Furthermore, existing asset management systems, where they exist, may not always be up to date with the latest changes to infrastructure. As a result, staff may be dealing with out-of-date information when they try to resolve trouble tickets or operational issues. Up to now, even though ITIL has become a de facto standard, there are no standards that exist on how to exchange metadata from all the potential sources of CMDB information. Today, the CMDB interfaces that exist are all proprietary, which is the problem the new working group wants to tackle.
This move by BMC, Fujitsu, HP, and IBM is very much to be welcomed as IT increasingly progresses to being managed in a more professional manner. There are two obvious absentees from this group, CA and Microsoft, and one must hope and expect that they soon join up with the group. There is no room for an internecine standards war in the industry at this time when IT needs to be run like a business.
Source: OpinionWire by Butler Group (www.butlergroup.com)
