ITIL: Configuration Management February 16, 2006
It’s been a while since I posted an ITIL map here, and I had a number of responses to it, both in the comments and via email. I am, as I mentioned, reviewing a variety of ITIL notes that I’ve accumulated and worked to and from, for a variety of reasons. I’ll post recaps here as I work through them (I’m not in “dedicated study mode”, this is something I’m doing as a part of my regular workday, and fitting around “real” work, and there’s no set schedule for this. If you’re interested in a particular piece of ITIL, let me know in the comments - no reason I have to work on these in any particular order!). Similarly, these are posted as high-level, refresher-type notes; I’m not going into a huge amount of detail - if you’re reading this and you’d like more information on specific items or elements, go right ahead and let me know in the comments, and we’ll go from there.
Configuration Management
Configuration Management is the starting point of the ITIL processes in that everything ultimately reports back into a CMDB - a Configuration Management Database. When you’re dealing with Asset Management, you’re tying the assets to the CMDB. When you’re doing Incident Management, that Incident is in relation to something that is recorded in the CMDB - in theory, anyway!
The goal of Configuration Management is to identify, record and report on all IT components that are under the control and scope of Configuration Management. In turn, Configuration Management provides the basis for Change Management, and Release Management.
Essential Activities for Configuration Management:
- Configuration Planning
- the strategy, policy, scope and objectives of CM
- the location of current assets and configurations
- …more…
- Identification
- Configuration Items scope, level and details
- Data collection and recording
- Control levels/baselines
- Configuration Item Relationships
- Control
- Registration / Archival
- Updating
- License Control
- Integrity
- Status Accounting
- History and Audit Trail
- Baseline & Release Status
- Responsibility for Status Change
- Tracking Problems and Changes Against Configuration Items
- Verification and Audit
- Release & Changes
- Consistency
- Detection of Deviations
- Audit Frequency
- Audit Tools
- Backups of the CMDB
- this is the core of the system. Even if a separate department or team is taking care of the backups, one or more people specifically assigned to Configuration Management need to be checking and verifying backups of the CMDB.
Tactical is the new Strategy
Great post by Chad Dickerson that I wanted to highlight, as it’s one of the “core values” that I try to work to. In summary: “Details Matter”.
Tactical is the new strategic — Chad Dickerson’s blog
“Strategies” are big and sweeping and inherently pass the task of implementation to someone else. Tactics are inherently about executing. The distance between “strategic” and “tactical” is measured in meetings, PowerPoints, conference calls, and, well, “not writing code.” Limiting (or even mostly eliminating) that distance is the key to making things happen.
I’m not saying that strategy isn’t important, just that strategy directly combined with tactical skill is the real killer combo. “Strategy” in the absense of tactical engagement is a loser’s game. If you’re a manager who gets down in the muck to make things happen (not to be confused with “micromanagement”), take heart: tactical is the new strategic.
Data Flow
Documenting some things in the office, I took a moment to look at some of the tools I use, and the data flow between them. I can see my self returning to this, and tidying it up some, as well as looking for efficiencies in the model.
(this is one of those “random, selfish” type posts that will hit the blog from time to time. It’s by me, for me. But if you find it interesting, that’s cool too).