A Configuration Management database (CMDB) is the trusted source of knowledge across an entire organization. It provides a clear understanding of an organization’s critical assets such as hardware, software, personnel, documentation and any combination between them. When implemented properly, it can bring huge benefits to a business as it grows.
If you’ve established a CMDB and have begun to populate it with data, it’s important to make sure everything is accurate and consistent. Using several tools provided by ServiceNow, you can make sure CMDB health is continuously operating efficiently.
These tools include:
• Key Performance Indicator (KPIs)
o KPIs are a quantitative measure used to evaluate the success of your organization, your employees, projects, etc. when looking to meet objectives for performance. ServiceNow provides several KPIs out of the box to help steer your CMDB in the right direction.
• Reduced Mean Time to Repair (MTTR)
o MTTR represents the average time required to repair failed component or device. The machine learning features in ServiceNow will correlate anomalies and alerts into issues, which are then prioritized into categories. This technique helps quickly identify the root cause of these IT operations issues, significantly reducing the mean time to repair devices or failed components.
• Intelligent Remediation
o The automation capabilities behind Intelligent Remediation are a huge help when it comes to dividing common tasks between people, or the system.
o The platform will learn to identify which items can be assigned to which groups and which can be automated in order to resolve them through continuous improvement.
• Normal vs. Abnormal
o Normal
The server experiences high volume at 8 a.m. because everyone is usually attempting to log in at once
o Abnormal
If it’s noon, a time when tides are usually low, if a large spike is seen, then something is wrong.
o The system will alert you if there is an abnormality outside of the defined thresholds. The system adjusts these thresholds overtime to determine what the actual normal thresholds should be.
• Correlate alerts with Machine Learning
o One alert with one machine rather than 1,000 alerts going out for the same issue or for every event spawned. This method will capture events and consolidate any duplicates into a single record. ServiceNow can respond to a single record with a solution once as opposed to a thousand times.
• Present Progress via Dashboards
o Progress of the CMDB can be monitored several different ways through a single, visible dashboard. Here are some of the ways below:
Your CMDB is only as good as the data that’s in it. Following these tips and tools can help maintain the integrity of the database as well as the overall accuracy within the CMDB. Interested in learning more about the features discussed above? Our team of ServiceNow experts can help! Contact a member of our team here for more information.