Plan Your Successful Cmdb Deployment Servicenow

Summary

Plan your successful CMDB
deployment
Achieve high-performing business services using a healthy CMDB
What’s in this Success Playbook
Behind every successful CMDB deployment is a detailed configuration management plan for
implementing, designing, and sustaining a configuration management capability. And when
you take the time to develop a configuration management plan, the result is greater business
service performance. This Success Playbook will help you:
• Articulate your goals
• Form a configuration management team
• Establish a governance structure
• Understand configuration item design
• Integrate with key business processes
Minimize outages, maximize savings
Unplanned outages can cost millions in just hours. With a robust configuration management
capability, IT can reduce unplanned outage costs and directly enhance business outcomes. To
do that, you need a strategic plan that establishes your maturity and trust with business owners

Key takeaways
The most important things to know
• Have clear goals for your configuration management process and CMDB. A well-configured
CMDB can help you manage service health, understand service consumption patterns, and
calculate the cost of services—but you need to understand your most important business
priorities to guide CMDB development

• Start small and iterate. Build a solid inventory of CIs tied to specific use cases. If you find
yourself populating your CMDB with items that don’t tie back your business priorities or use
cases, you’re probably off track

1
© 2021 ServiceNow, Inc. All rights reserved. ServiceNow, the ServiceNow logo, Now, Now Platform, and other ServiceNow marks are trademarks and/or registered
trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective
companies with which they are associated

The payoff of getting this right
A well-configured CMDB can save you as much as 40% in IT costs—and help you avoid the costs
of unplanned outages

What you need to get started
Prerequisites
You need a general knowledge of ITIL and of configuration management methodology. You
also need to understand the features and functions supported by the CMDB

Playbook overview
The four stages toward a healthy CMDB:
Stage 1 – Set your direction
Stage 2 – Build a team and a governance model
Stage 3 – Design your configuration plan
Stage 4 – Show your CMDB’s value to other organizations
The takeaway – Manage service health
At the end of these stages, you’ll see that the takeaway is your ability to manage service health
better than ever. You will also be able to understand:
• The distinction between business services that offer a competitive advantage (and require
investment) vs. those that are commoditized (and should be looked to for cost savings)
• Your technical debt and support risk profiles for services
• Consumption patterns for your services
• The technology architectures used to deliver your services
• The cost of your services, as well as your ability to deliver against SLAs
2
© 2021 ServiceNow, Inc. All rights reserved. ServiceNow, the ServiceNow logo, Now, Now Platform, and other ServiceNow marks are trademarks and/or registered
trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective
companies with which they are associated

Stage 1 – Set your direction
Clear configuration management goals, objectives, and outcomes are the keys to
designing a great configuration management capability that leads to a rock -solid CMDB

Designing a great configuration management capability starts with clear configuration
management goals, objectives, and outcomes. Make sure your configuration management
efforts are aligned to your business objectives

Write well-stated goals and objectives
Companies with successful CMDB deployments always articulate what to accomplish, their
approach, intended business outcomes, and their ongoing measurements of those outcomes

What What do you want to accomplish?
How Define your approach, constraints, and assumptions

Why What are the business outcomes that CMDB will support?
Measure How do you know you're doing it right?
Table 1: A quick way to set goals and objectives
Start by writing a list of use cases to focus your goals. These use cases should directly tie to the
strategic initiatives of your company. ServiceNow® customers often start with these:
3
© 2021 ServiceNow, Inc. All rights reserved. ServiceNow, the ServiceNow logo, Now, Now Platform, and other ServiceNow marks are trademarks and/or registered
trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective
companies with which they are associated

QUESTIONS YOU'RE MAPPED USE CASE HOW DOES THIS TIE BACK TO
ADDRESSING CMDB?
An infrastructure component Data center migration Accurate infrastructure
broke in the middle of data configuration and its impact
center migration. How would on business services
this impact services?
We need to change Change management Accurate infrastructure
something in our data center. configuration and its impact
How will this affect our on business services
business?
Our monitoring tool notified us Cloud-first strategy Mapping of cloud services
that a metric has exceeded a along with on-premises
threshold that happens to be infrastructure
in the cloud. How urgent is this
to our business?
We're spending lots of money Asset management Accurate tracking of
on our IT infrastructure. Where infrastructure and applications
are these components
deployed and for what
business applications?
Table 2: Questions that customers ask when setting up key use cases tailored to support business initiatives
to accelerate goals and objective definitions
4
© 2021 ServiceNow, Inc. All rights reserved. ServiceNow, the ServiceNow logo, Now, Now Platform, and other ServiceNow marks are trademarks and/or registered
trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective
companies with which they are associated

Customer example
Table 3 shows you how one customer outlined goals and focused on key business priorities using
the Why section

What • Implement configuration management
How • Executed completely and accurately
• Done with automation
• Satisfies audit and compliance requirements
• Reduces technological complexity
• Improves planning, coordination, and communication of changes
• Moves us from application-centric to business-centric
Why • Understand the impact of changes proactively
• Support data center migration
• Enabler to digital transformation
• Support cloud first strategy
Measure • Improved perception of trusted system of record
• Incident reduction
Table 3: A customer example of setting goals and objectives
This document shows more examples of how to effectively set goals and objectives

EXPERT TIP
Write your goals so they help your organization achieve its strategic initiatives

5
© 2021 ServiceNow, Inc. All rights reserved. ServiceNow, the ServiceNow logo, Now, Now Platform, and other ServiceNow marks are trademarks and/or registered
trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective
companies with which they are associated

Stage 2 – Build a team and a governance model
When you build your configuration management team and governance structure and get
early buy-in from executives, it helps create credibility and trust in your configuration
management process over the long term

The team should have autonomy to carry out configuration management responsibilities without
being bogged down by daily support functions. This team should operate independently from
the day-to-day “keep the lights on” support functions

With your team in place, define each member’s role, responsibilities, and authority. Then
document these things to ensure they have the ownership and support to make the changes
required

ROLE RESPONSIBILITY TITLE
CM executive sponsor Oversees configuration management Senior executive
plan implementation in all
CCB process owner
departments within the company
CM process owner Has ownership and is accountable Senior manager
for its strategic development; Ensures
CCB chair
CM plan is rolled out
Configuration manager Manages delivery of CM services and IT manager
documentation of operating
Full CCB member/guest
procedures
member
CM system analyst Performs daily configuration IT analyst
management tasks with minimal
Full CCB member/guest
direction
member
Performs daily configuration
CM specialist IT admin
management tasks with direction
Full CCB member/guest from CM system analyst
member
Table 4: Typical assignments for a configuration management team
Table 4 shows how one ServiceNow customer outlined its team’s roles and responsibilities before
deploying the CMDB

To learn more about identifying and assigning roles, read this detailed guide

6
© 2021 ServiceNow, Inc. All rights reserved. ServiceNow, the ServiceNow logo, Now, Now Platform, and other ServiceNow marks are trademarks and/or registered
trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective
companies with which they are associated

Implement governance
As part of this team, ServiceNow customers form a configuration control board (CCB). The CCB
serves as a steering committee to make sure there is always a good value proposition for
configuration management efforts. The CCB is essential and is there to ensure your configuration
management project stays on track, from a value proposition perspective, and remains
effective for the company. Voting members of your CCB should be leadership team members
who are directly accountable for the strategic initiatives of the IT department and close enough
to the day-to-day infrastructure support team efforts to understand the use cases

For an example of how our customers implement governance through a CCB, take a look at this
CCB Charter document

We’ve found that the titles and roles of the CM team vary in each company. For instance, the
ServiceNow IT infrastructure and operations team uses the RACI matrix (Responsible,
Accountable, Consulted, Informed) to manage configuration management tasks. For example,
when they publish a new configuration item (CI), each of the four members of the team ensures
that updates are made successfully. Both the configuration manager and analyst are
accountable and responsible for publishing the new CI; while the CI owner and process owners
are informed of this change to ensure all systems are updated and communicated to
stakeholders

7
© 2021 ServiceNow, Inc. All rights reserved. ServiceNow, the ServiceNow logo, Now, Now Platform, and other ServiceNow marks are trademarks and/or registered
trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective
companies with which they are associated

CL OWNER CONFIGURATION CONFIGURATION PROCESS
USER
ANALYST MANAGER OWNER
Process planning and design
Produce configuration management plan C R R/A
Define CMDB structure C R R/A
Determine Cl selection guidelines C R R/A
Populate CMDB C R/A
Perform initial audit R R/A C
Baseline CMDB I R/A I
Configuration identification
Validate update request C R R/A
Validate Cl attributes R R/A
Review invalid attributes C R R/A
Update CMDB C R R/A
Publish new Cl type I R R/A I
Configuration control
Validate update request C R/A
Validate Cl attributes I R/A
Review invalid attributes R/A C
Update CMDB I R/A
Status accounting and reporting
Authorize or reject report request I R R/A
Create or update configuration
R R/A
management report
Generate configuration management report R R/A
Distribute configuration management report I R R/A
Verification and audit
Approve verification and audit request
Execute audit R/A
Reconcile with CMDB R/A
Determine corrective action R/A I
Initiate corrective CMDB action R/A
Execute corrective action 1 R/A
R: Responsible, A: Accountable, C: Consulted, I: Informed
Table 5: ServiceNow IT infrastructure and operations team RACI matrix that is used to assign configuration
management team tasks
8
© 2021 ServiceNow, Inc. All rights reserved. ServiceNow, the ServiceNow logo, Now, Now Platform, and other ServiceNow marks are trademarks and/or registered
trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective
companies with which they are associated

One of our customers clearly documents tasks that require approval from their governance
board and those that can be accomplished by the application support team. For instance,
application support can modify version, lifecycle, business owner, and relationships. While fields
like business criticality, SLA, and operational status (live, retired, etc.) have to go through the
board for formal approval. We like this approach since it clearly identifies the responsibilities of
the stakeholders

EXPERT TIP
Create a structured team and a steering committee to keep everyone focused on the goals
of keeping a business-driven configuration management plan

9
© 2021 ServiceNow, Inc. All rights reserved. ServiceNow, the ServiceNow logo, Now, Now Platform, and other ServiceNow marks are trademarks and/or registered
trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective
companies with which they are associated

Stage 3 – Design your configuration plan
Start small and grow gradually as you design your CMDB with conf iguration items

Take the time to familiarize yourself with the CMDB and its features and functions. Develop an
understanding of the design options for the CMDB and the broader ecosystem of federated
systems and data feeds

Your CMDB is populated with configuration items (CIs), which must be classified for you to have
a properly managed CMDB. When you start this process, start small and grow gradually. Also
make sure that there are no duplicate CIs

WHAT IS A CI?
A CI is one of the most important components of your CMDB. It’s simply an application,
infrastructure, or service component you’re managing. It can be a physical server, an app
running on a virtual server, or a business service

Decide which CI classes and attributes you need to support the use cases you identified in
Stage 1. Most organizations start simple and make incremental improvements as they gain
experience. From this, you should be able to identify the types of CI classes you will need to
manage. You will need to make sure these CI classes are at the appropriate level—as in what
level of definition is meaningful to the use cases you identified earlier. As a general
recommendation, start with using the CI classes defined out of the box for CIs that can be
discovered with the Now Platform®. These CI classes have been vetted by thousands of our
customers and should contain all of the attributes your efforts will need

For example, you might start with a hardware CI class, so you assign some simple attributes: CPU,
memory, etc. As you build your CMDB, you’ll map computers, servers, routers, switches, and so
on. Each of these CIs will have attributes and each one of them will have relationships and
dependencies

Heads up!
Your CI tables can get out of control quickly if you don’t
simplify them! Keep their names intuitive so they are easy to
identify and remember

10
© 2021 ServiceNow, Inc. All rights reserved. ServiceNow, the ServiceNow logo, Now, Now Platform, and other ServiceNow marks are trademarks and/or registered
trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective
companies with which they are associated

OUR CUSTOMERS START BY CLASSIFYING THESE CIS:
• Windows server • Network router
• Linux server • Network switch
• Firewall • Storage
• Load balancer • Application server
• Database
One large insurance customer warns that it’s easy to add data to the CMDB but harder to
maintain the model

For CI classes that are not discoverable, you might need to extend an out-of-the-box class

Figure 1 depicts how the CMDB uses object-oriented inheritance in the creation of all CI classes

If you are using ServiceNow Discovery, it will find all the network infrastructure, applications, and
services and populate them into the CMDB. Dependency maps let you see where your CIs
support a critical service

For example, the loss of disk drives may take a database instance down, which affects the
requisition service the HR department uses to order equipment for new employees. If you are
using ServiceNow Discovery or Service Mapping (features in the ITOM Visibility product), the
dependencies between discoverable CIs will be built for you automatically as the CMDB is
updated by discovery updates. See Figure 2

11
© 2021 ServiceNow, Inc. All rights reserved. ServiceNow, the ServiceNow logo, Now, Now Platform, and other ServiceNow marks are trademarks and/or registered
trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective
companies with which they are associated

Figure 2: ServiceNow CMDB dependency map
For the logical “business layers” that are not discoverable, you will have to define the
relationships between discoverable and non-discoverable CIs comprising your business model

For each CI class, you will need to make sure the CMDB is configured properly. Use CI Class
Manager to configure the rules for each CI class to ensure you have all the necessary
information about your CIs in one place. The CMDB stores all the information you want to
capture and manage on an ongoing basis and can record relationships between attributes in
the CMDB

In order to manage changes to the CMDB, we recommend setting up configuration control that
eliminates the risks of unnecessary tweaks to the CIs. Based on customer implementations, we
suggest that you proactively manage CIs and their dependencies when they’re added,
deleted, and modified. When a business process like incident management requests a change
to the CIs, you should:
1. Allow change requests via Change Management; you can easily do this using the Propose
Change feature if have ServiceNow Change Management enabled

2. Assign proper privileges to the authorized users to make changes; normally it’s a member of
your team such as a CM analyst

3. Validate CI attributes against agreed criteria in your configuration management plan

4. Update the CMDB with the necessary changes and communicate them to stakeholders

12
© 2021 ServiceNow, Inc. All rights reserved. ServiceNow, the ServiceNow logo, Now, Now Platform, and other ServiceNow marks are trademarks and/or registered
trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective
companies with which they are associated

Also need to understand the features and functions supported by the CMDB. Playbook overview The four stages toward a healthy CMDB: Stage 1 – Set your direction Stage 2 – Build a team and a governance model Stage 3 – Design your configuration plan Stage 4 – Show your CMDB’s value to other organizations

Download Now

Documemt Updated

Popular Download

• › Philips Research Information Letter For Volunteers
• › Project Idea Template For Faculty Members Questions
• › Photo Paper Pro Platinum Canon Global
• › Practices Four Fold Brochure Vs 53 Ecofaithrecoveryorg
• › Process From Ms Publisher To Vistaprint Effective Church Com
• › Performance Management In A Covid19 World All Staff
• › Product Brochure Legal Review Att Business
• › Post Employee Handbook Amvets Dept Of Florida
• › Portfolio Programme Management Ppm Pwc
• › Printable Telephone Message Pad Template Hoover Web
• › Personal Document Locator Kpers Home
• › Plan Your Successful Cmdb Deployment Servicenow
• › Professionalizing Family Businesses Gearing Up The Start
• › Pharmaceutical Industry Fellowship Program
• › Printable Work Order Forms Electromedmarinecom
• › Please Print Or Type The Application For Employment
• › Plockmatic Blm50 Blm35 For Canon Group
• › Printing Services Work Order
• › Pdf To Flash Brochure Flash Ebrochure Maker
• › Personal Hygiene Health And Routine Ontario Youthcan

Frequently Asked Questions

What makes a successful cmdb deployment?

Every successful CMDB deployment needs a detailed Configuration Management Plan. When you clearly identify your objectives and develop a comprehensive strategy for attaining and sustaining these capabilities, you lay the foundation for better business service health.

What is the servicenow cmdb dashboard?

Using the ServiceNow CMDB dashboard, your stakeholders get status updates and track important changes. In this way, you’re able to share the health of the CMDB. Figure 4 depicts an example CMDB dashboard. You can use the CMDB health dashboard to manage the health of the CMDB and communicate it to business stakeholders.

How to manage cmdb configuration?

Step 1: Set your direction Great configuration management starts with clear goals, actionable objectives, and measurable business outcomes. Write well-defined goals and objectives Companies with successful CMDB deployments always articulate what they want to accomplish.

How can i improve the performance of my cmdb?

Reduce your IT costs and improve service performance by gaining visibility into your environment with a well-configured CMDB. To do so, use Discovery to simplify populating your data and to make sure that it's current and reliable. Learn how to build a healthy CMDB process to improve service performance.