Continuous improvement is critical to IT Service Management processes. We all look for ways to refine processes, but we often overlook the data foundation that underpins service level management. That foundation is a common Configuration Database (CMDB) that all service management shares. If the CMDB contains inaccurate and incomplete data, the following consequences may result:
- High incidence of change collisions
- Ineffective change impact analysis
- Increased mean time to resolution (MTTR)
- Inconclusive root cause analysis
- Inability to create and deliver services due to inadequate understanding of Configuration Items (CI’s) and relationships
The above points represent just a fraction of the service management impacts of an incomplete or inaccurate CMDB. Organizations migrate to new ITSM suites for various reasons and, when they do, it is an opportune time for them to cleanse ITAM/CMDB data and improve the related processes. Just importing existing CI’s and their existing relationships will not address the core data integrity issue. The new CMDB needs to be populated with purified asset and service data.
Blazent uses a five step process to refine raw CI data:
- First, a process of atomization reduces discovery data to its most granular form.
- Data identity management aligns disparate representations of the same CI attribute across different management tools.
- Relationship analysis maps dependencies between assets and services, across data sources.
- This cleansing process creates a unique “master” record for each entity that combines the most accurate elements from all data sources.
- By tracking the history of each element, you can trace the evolution of your IT landscape, while maintaining the context over time.
I have outlined five ITSM failures typically caused by a poorly informed CMDB and the five step data purification process required to remediate the situation.
For the ServiceNow CMDB, Blazent has created a certified integration to create incident records to get gaps and data conflicts reviewed before automating the selection and maintenance of the most authoritative source for each data element.
To learn more about the benefits of using Blazent, watch the on-demand webinar on Cleaning Up Your Data featuring Pacific Life.