To manage IT operations, assess security risks, and make informed decisions, a mature CMDB is essential. However, organizations often struggle to achieve CMDB maturity due to the lack of resources with the required skill sets, a strategic plan, and the right tools to populate the Configuration Item (CI) data faster and accurately into the CMDB.
How to Enter CI Data Accurately into CMDB?
- 1) Manually entering CI data
- 2) Importing data from CSV files or spreadsheets
- 3) Importing data using ServiceNow Discovery and Service Mapping
- ServiceNow Discovery leverages its automation capabilities to discover and populate infrastructure-related or CI data into the CMDB.
- Subsequently, ServiceNow Service Mapping utilizes the data discovered by ServiceNow Discovery to map the relationship between the CIs and the organization’s services and populates that data in the CMDB.
- ServiceNow Discovery and ServiceNow Service Mapping work together to provide organizations with the required visibility into their IT infrastructure and services in the CMDB.
Find out how a Fortune 500 company revolutionized its IT operations management by optimizing ServiceNow CMDB.
The 3 Stages of CMDB Maturity –The Role of ServiceNow in Progressing to the Next Level
Organizations can be classified into three different categories, considering the level of their CMDB maturity. Let’s now see what each level of CMDB maturity looks like and how ServiceNow enables organizations to improve their CMDB maturity.
- Follows manual data populating methods
- Lack of knowledge of IT operations
- No proper CMDB setup
- Lack of automation capabilities for populating data
- A fair understanding of IT Operations
- Equipped with a proper CMDB
- Implements automated data populating & mapping tools – ServiceNow Discovery and Service Mapping
- Streamlined and efficient IT operations in place
- Has a mature CMDB built
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The Road Ahead
Achieving CMDB maturity is a gradual process and takes time and careful planning. Identifying business requirements and capabilities and aligning that with CMDB implementation is the way forward. Moreover, the right expert team should be present to ensure smooth CMDB implementation.
Author
Joshua Smith
Joshua is the ServiceNow Practice Director at KANINI. He is a process improvement thought leader and digital transformation expert. Over the past 15 years, Josh’s focus has always been on achieving organizational maturity and enhancing business processes through implementing tools and workflows to drive transformation initiatives. With experience in multiple verticals from – manufacturing to healthcare, Joshua brings a practitioner’s perspective when working on business solutions and goals to allow him to advise and guide on industry and process best practices.