Norm,
Part of the value of having monitoring (and discovery tools) is that
you can bash "changes" in the availability and configuration against
planed changes. (And you can discover unplanned, and uncontrolled
changes.) Some of the most expensive problems are planned changes.
However some of the more serious failures are normally unplanned.
Automated process can run 100% of the time. Humans pounding on the
keyboard generally are not as 100% available, or 100% consistent about
how they do things. ("Microsoft" != "microsoft" in most programming
languages.)
Everything I have read and learned about a CMDB is that if your not
discovering some (or most) of your data then you might as well not
even start down that road. Even if the discovery process leads to some
false negatives, it is a start to understanding your actually
environment and processes. And that is the point of the Configuration
Management DB.
--
Carey Matthew Black
Remedy Skilled Professional (RSP)
ARS = Action Request System(Remedy)
Love, then teach
Solution = People + Process + Tools
Fast, Accurate, Cheap.... Pick two.
On 6/27/07, Kaiser Norm E CIV USAF 96 CS/SCCE <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
**
Well…what the auto-discovery tool can/can't do isn't really my concern here.
Say I have a server on the network. My discovery tool discovers it. It
accordingly creates a record in its database.
A few days go by. Someone shuts down the server for
maintenance…coincidentally during the next discovery poll. The discovery
tool now sees the server as "missing" from the network.
Now consider an enterprise that consists of over 40,000 such machines
(servers, workstations, laptops, etc.) and imagine the problem.
________________________________
From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList)
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rick Cook
Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2007 1:17 PM
To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG
Subject: Re: Real-World Value of SMS & CMDB
Actually, your better discovery platforms (which may or may not include SMS)
can allow alarms to be set for things like differences in discovered
hardware. Consult your system documentation to see if that's available. I
remember that a really old version of LANDesk had that.
Rick
________________________________
From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList)
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Kaiser Norm E CIV USAF 96 CS/SCCE
Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2007 11:11 AM
To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG
Subject: Re: Real-World Value of SMS & CMDB
**
Perhaps I'm oversimplifying it—but from a 10,000 foot perspective, if what
interests you is in SMS and what SMS can discover, why not just query SMS?
In regard to your question, "…how will you know when something leaves the
company?" that's part of my point—SMS won't tell you that…at least not in
many big enterprises.
________________________________
From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList)
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rick Cook
Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2007 12:56 PM
To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG
Subject: Re: Real-World Value of SMS & CMDB
Well, the component and related information (installed HW and SW), if that's
important to you, would be something discovery tools like SMS can give you.
Even if you only want to track the workstation, how will you know when
something leaves the company, or is added to the infrastructure (like an
unauthorized laptop)?
Rick
________________________________
From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList)
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Kaiser Norm E CIV USAF 96 CS/SCCE
Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2007 10:50 AM
To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG
Subject: Real-World Value of SMS & CMDB
**
Hi everyone:
I wanted to discuss the practicality issues of using SMS to populate the
CMDB. I understand all (or virtually all) of the theory, but now I want to
discuss the real-world practicality of it.
By my estimation, the only real-world value I see in using SMS to populate
the CMDB is that it saves someone from having to pound the keyboard to get
system information into it. That's it.
I've heard some folks talk about using SMS to identify deltas within the
hardware inventory. That is, on Day 1, Dell Workstation 1 was discovered by
SMS. On Day 9, Dell Workstation 1 is missing. That's a delta. An
inventory manager can then be notified of that delta so that he can go
figure out if Dell Workstation 1 got up and "walked away."
But the way SMS is configured at most large sites, this would not work. In
some configurations, items do not get removed from the SMS database until
their machine account in the Active Directory is removed AND the machine
fails to respond to polls for X amount of time. This does the enterprise no
good in preventing, say, theft, as a thief does not request that the
computer's machine account be removed from the Active Directory before he
steals it! Theft prevention and loss prevention are two of the
justifications in the total cost of ownership calculation, according to
ITIL.
But SMS alone won't get you there. You need something like RFID to truly
identify instances of missing hardware.
So what does SMS get you other than not having to pound a keyboard?
Thoughts?
Norm
__20060125_______________________This posting was submitted
with HTML in it___
__20060125_______________________This posting was submitted
with HTML in it___ __20060125_______________________This
posting was submitted with HTML in it___
__20060125_______________________This posting was submitted
with HTML in it___ __20060125_______________________This
posting was submitted with HTML in it___
_______________________________________________________________________________
UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org ARSlist:"Where the Answers
Are"
