Just from what I have read in this thread, it seems like either building a CMDB or adding a CMDB at this point may make the current situation worse. Sounds your current apps needs to gain some level of maturity since it appears to be far from supporting ITIL processes. I would imagine adding a CMDB would make matters more complicated. Just because there is a CMDB on a server (OOB or home grown) doesn't mean it has value. A CMDB is just a tool, if you don't have the supporting processes or integrated applications it could become a time and resources sinkhole. I don't have any numbers but from what I have heard/read over the last few years a large percentage of CMDB implementations fail.
Granted the decision may have already been made for you that there will be a CMDB, but if there is an urgent need to track assets/CI's maybe some simple forms to hold the data (and maybe some simple relationships) would be a good start so you can capture and manage the data (sounds like you may be in one of those situations where CI's are currently being kept in Excel spreadsheets, this would at least give you a central repository that is frequently backed up (I hope)). I may be way off base here since I made a number assumptions but I know there are a still companies out there trying to get out of the chaotic/reactive phases, not sure if your company is one of them. Jason From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Kathy Morris Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 7:48 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Customized CMDB ** The company has fully customized incident and change. I can not even call what was built a change management or incident management application because the customized version is not managing the changes or incidences. Its more like a repository of incidence and changes. There is no tasks, no relationship between CRs, not really an approval engine; we have a very skeletal version of change and incident-tracking. One issue is none of the applications are integrated, we are not able to see the full change life cycle, because there are all these separate custom change applications; and the company is trying to adopt ITIL processes on paper, but somehow the thinking has not changed towards ITIL. On top of these customized change/incident applications within AR System, they would like to build a custom CMDB. In have my concerns about going down the fully customization route which is why I wanted to find out about other people's experiences . _____ Check out AOL Money & Finance's list of the hottest <http://money.aol.com/special/hot-products-2007?NCID=aoltop00030000000001> products and top <http://money.aol.com/top5/general/ways-you-are-wasting-money?NCID=aoltop000 30000000002> money wasters of 2007. __20060125_______________________This posting was submitted with HTML in it___ _______________________________________________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org Platinum Sponsor: www.rmsportal.com ARSlist: "Where the Answers Are"
