Objective of Configuration Management
Provide reliable and current details about the IT infrastructure
- Maintain a logical model of the IT services.
- Identify, monitor, control and provide information about configuration items and their versions
Configuration Items
Configuration Items (CI) are IT components or services that are recorded. These are stored in the Configuration Management Database (CMDB).
Configuration Management Database
The Configuration Management Database (CMDB) contains CIs. Anything recorded in the CMDB must be controlled by the Change Management process. The CMDB contains
- CIs
- relationships of CIs to other CIs
- authorized configuration of the infrastructure
- status of IT components, location and changes that have been made
The Asset Management database is not the CMDB. It can be used as the basis for the CMDB.
Configuration Management Activities
- Planning defines the objective, scope and priorities of the CMDB. This should be aligned to the business objectives.
- Identify the CIs to be stored in the CMDB. Items in the CMDB should go through the Change Management process. This process also defines the level of detail of a CI attribute. This also includes the actual recording of the item to the CMDB.
- Once the item is in the CMDB, each CI has a life cycle of its own. Changing the status could be due to a change or incident. Possible status are New, Existing or Archived.
- The control activity records changes to the CI status or its relationship to other CIs. Changes made in change management have to be updated in the CMDB.
- Regular verification and audits are recommended. This is to ensure that the CMDB is accurate. Ideally, audits should be conducted upon implementation, every 6 months, before and after every major change and after a disaster.
