The vendors involved include BMC, Fujitsu, IBM and HP. They are trying to tackle what has long proven one of the most elusive holy grails in IT service management: how to keep system administrators and service desk representatives up to date on the assets they are trying to manage or problems they are trying to solve.
Such a repository, called a Change and Configuration Management Database (CMDB), is called for by ITIL (IT Infrastructure Libraries), a framework that provides terminology and a way to organize best practices around IT service delivery. CMDBs have been among the most elusive holy grails in optimizing delivery of IT service.
The dilemma is that in most companies if these data are stored at all, chances are they reside in multiple, vendor-specific repositories that are difficult, if not impossible, to synchronize. For instance, 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. The result is that admins and beleaguered help desk representatives may be dealing with dated information when they try to resolve trouble tickets or operational issues.
To date, standards have yet to exist on how to exchange meta data from all these potential sources of CMDB information. Today, the CMDB interfaces that exist are all proprietary, which is the problem that the new working group wants to tackle.
According to BMC Software chief technology officer Tom Bishop, the idea first surfaced as Bishop and others met directly or through associates at various industry events and realized that progress was necessary for standardizing meta data exchange. The vendors include Mark Potts, chief technologist for HP OpenView; Alan Ganek, chief technology officer for IBM Tivoli Software; and Yasushi Ishida, vice president for software strategy and architecture for Fujitsu Ltd.
For now, Bishop says the vendors have reached a working agreement to develop an early consensus on the interfaces that need to be standardized. The goal is a draft specification for exchange of CMDB data in a federated manner supporting the two interfaces specified by ITIL.
We intentionally decided not to pursue this within a standards group first because we wanted to make some quick progress, said Bishop. Eventually, the group wants to select a standards organization under which this effort would eventually be formalized.
Potential candidates might include itSMF International (IT Service Management Foundation), which has been heavily associated with ITIL adoption. Alternatively, the effort could reside at DMTF (Distributed Management Task Force), which has previously developed the CIM (Common Information Management) framework. The drawback with DMTF is that CIM has seen little adoption.
The working group will issue a white paper within the next month that will spell out their initial goals in more detail. And by the end of the year, they hope to have a draft specification proposal, at which point they hope to formalize the process by choosing a standards body.
Conspicuously absent for now are CA and Microsoft. Bishop hopes endorsements will eventually come in as the effort picks up steam.
