Configuration Management Database: Visualize Your IT Environment

Gain control over your inventory, service processes, and supporting infrastructure with a comprehensive configuration management database (CMDB.) Build a database of all physical and conceptual IT components and easily track the relationships between them to predict the business impact of any change you make. With automatic discovery tools, integration with your help desk, and easy customization options, SysAid makes effective configuration management simple.

Instantly visualize the dynamic relationships between the elements in your network for smarter planning, faster problem solving, and fewer risks when implementing change.

For a quick overview, check out our how-to tutorial on using ITIL CMDB.

Predict the Business Impact of Any Change

Have you ever replaced a server and accidentally caused hours of downtime during business hours? Upgraded a router and found out only later that it affected every PC on the first floor? In many instances, service disruptions in your organization are not caused by unforeseeable IT crises, but are instead the result of insufficient information and planning.

By building a configuration management database (CMDB), you can track every configuration item in your network and view the relationships between applications, assets, business services, people – anything and everything in your IT environment. This gives you the information you then need to predict the business impact of changes, identify underlying problems, and effectively manage the changing dynamics of IT in your organization.

Maintain a Comprehensive Inventory of your Assets

Your IT activities center around many different configuration items: people, computers, software, network infrastructure, and more. SysAid CMDB allows you to map out your entire network architecture by logging inventory of any sort as configuration items. It acts as a central repository of information that allows you to keep track of every component in your IT environment.

• Add an unlimited number of configuration items
• Create types and subtypes to categorize your inventory
• Customize more than 250 fields to describe your CIs in explicit detail

Automatically Import Data into Your CMDB

Instead of having to manually entering individual CIs, SysAid allows you to automatically import your assets, software products, and catalog items. Other items can be imported from CSV files for easy and fast deployment of the CMDB.

Create Relationships Between Your Configuration Items

If you replace a server, who and what will it affect? To help you effectively manage the dynamics between your assets, IT processes, and business services, the CMDB enables you to define the relationships between your configuration items and view them in intuitive graphical maps.

Defining the physical connections (which computers are connected to a specific printer) as well as the logical connections (the processing of the monthly payroll depends on the accounting software) not only gives you the information you need to resolve incidents more quickly, but also enables strategic planning to lower risk and negative business impacts.

• Create an infinite number of relation types between configuration items (“connected to,” “accessed by”, “installed on”)
• Automatically map out the relationships between your assets, software products, and catalog items with a click of a button
• Instantly visualize the detailed interconnections between your hardware, software, business processes, colleagues – everything that your IT department manages
• Label the subtypes with your own icons

Faster Problem Solving and Simpler Root Cause Analysis

The CMDB allows you to easily track the state of your CIs with intuitive visual indicators. Every CI is represented with a corresponding icon, and these icons change colors to reflect associated incidents, problems, changes, and monitoring alerts.

For example, the icon for Server A suddenly turns red in the CMDB. This means that it has reached a warning threshold and requires immediate attention. With the graphical map, you can quickly check which elements of your network will be affected if Server A goes down and develop a recovery plan to minimize the impact.

In addition, you can see how many incidents are attached to each CI and click on the icons to drill down to the service requests in question. This information can help you quickly identify root cause problems and formulate smarter problem solving strategies.

Full Integration with Your Help Desk and Asset Management

The CMDB is fully integrated with the rest of SysAid so that you can access important information about your CIs and consult the CMDB relation maps from within the Help Desk, Asset Management, Tasks and Projects, Problem Management, and Change Management modules. This gives all permitted administrators the ability to access important information, evaluate business impacts, and act accordingly.

• Access a service request history in the help desk for every CI
• Link all assets, software products, and catalog items to the CMDB
• Attach CIs to activities and tasks
• View relation maps from within a change or problem to evaluate the business impact of any action

The Result: The underlying information framework you need for successful management of your IT environment.