Step-by-Step Guide toBuilding a CMDB - RightStar

Stage 1. Assemble the Project Team and Define the Project
also supports back-out procedures. The CMDB keeps version details for software, verifies tested
configurations, and enables project scheduling. The relationship data in the CMDB can help you
assess the potential system and financial impact of a planned release, and enables you to link
CI changes together as a release and maintain the release-rollout status.
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Potential hard benefits: Reduced release cost by enabling greater automation, reduced
service impact, reduced business risk
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Potential soft benefits: Reduced staff burnout due to manual software and patch installation
Service desk. The CMDB enables significant improvement in a range of service desk functions
by providing detailed information about CIs related to service requests. Information about CI
status, current configuration, configuration baseline, dependencies to other CIs and to business
services, and planned changes all can help service desk managers meet service requests. The
CMDB also provides the data the service desk needs to notify users of outages and the status
of problem resolution.
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Potential hard benefits: Reduced service costs; improved service levels by reducing errors,
reducing manual data collection, and reducing the risk of failure due to changes that affect
vital business functions
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Potential soft benefits: Improved customer satisfaction, improved service manager morale
Service level management. The CMDB allows end-to-end service level management, providing
detailed information about CIs, their relationships to each other, and their relationships to the
underlying infrastructure linked back to IT services. It provides CI relationship data that links
service level agreements (SLAs) to customers and to all related CIs that enable the service.
It allows dynamic referencing of SLA components. The CMDB also enables operating level
agreements (with internal IT groups and external service providers) and underpinning contracts
(with external service providers) showing customer ownership. The CMDB provides a rich source
of data for a data-driven service improvement program.
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Potential hard benefits: Provides data that enables IT organizations to write and meet
comprehensive SLAs
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Potential soft benefits: Improved customer satisfaction through better reporting and confidence
that service levels will be met
Financial management. The CMDB provides information that is critical to the effective financial
management of IT. It contains a complete list of CIs, from which you easily can produce expected
maintenance costs and license fees, maintenance contracts, license renewal dates, and CI replacement
costs. Unlicensed copies of software can be identified easily, for erasure or destruction.
The CMDB also enables service-based cost calculations by linking delivered services to supporting
CIs. Detailed dependency data enables accurate charge-back programs, provides a vital source
for inventory and asset audits, and serves as an important tool for service-based budgeting and
forecasting. The CMDB also creates links to the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system
holding the fixed asset register.
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Potential hard benefits: Reduced maintenance contract costs, reduced license fees, more
accurate service costing, charge-back to IT users
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Potential soft benefits: Understanding true cost of delivering services
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