Last week I attended the final presentation of an operations and maintenance data governance project. This project completed two phases. At the presentation, everyone looked back on the journey of operations and maintenance data governance over the past two or three years. There were a lot of feelings, from being in the mud, to getting a feel for it, to getting on the right track.
Is it strange that we start with operations and maintenance data governance when we talk about CMDB? Because from now on, when we work on product lines, we've re-categorized CMDB. Instead of classifying CMDB as an operations and maintenance product line, we're going to look at it from a different perspective and classify it as a data governance category. You can think about this: what combination is better?, ITSM construction + CMDB construction or operations and maintenance data governance + CMDB construction?
When rebuilding their ITSM systems, more and more IT organizations often treat CMDB building separately. This is correct and a wise decision! Why? Because times have changed, the situation has changed, and the demands on ITSM have changed. People are no longer satisfied with the CMDB serving only processes and work orders. The responsibilities and expectations that the CMDB takes on are growing and going beyond its traditional definition. However, the essence of ITSM tools hasn't changed and doesn't need to change. So the only thing that can change is the CMDB!
I've said before that CMDB is just a synonym for Configuration Management System (CMS). Although the configuration management system is relatively large, its core management goal is only one, which is to ensure the completeness and accuracy of operations and maintenance data. All operations of the system revolve around operations and maintenance data. For example, the configuration management process collects and uses operation and maintenance data; the CMDB collects, stores, and creates topological relationships of operation and maintenance data; regular audits ensure that the operation and maintenance data in the records match the actual situation, and so on.
ITSM construction + CMDB construction is the traditional operation and maintenance thinking, hoping that the reconstruction of the ITSM product will bring about the rebirth of CMDB. Operations and maintenance data governance + CMDB construction is the thinking based on data-driven operations and maintenance. It hopes to achieve operation and maintenance data governance with "data quality as the core, scenarios as the orientation, and consumption as the value" through data-driven operation and maintenance methods, using data governance as the means, standardizing first, then making it scenario-based, and finally building tool models.
Under the general framework of operation and maintenance data governance, the configuration management system belongs to the operation and maintenance data management capability, and CMDB belongs to the platform ability within the operations and maintenance data guarantee capability. This is the reason why we need to re-classify CMDB. Because we need to re-evaluate the real-world value and future development potential of CMDB from the perspective of data-driven operations and maintenance!
The above represents the thinking behind our operations and maintenance data governance product line as it relates to the CMDB.
