What is it like to be a first time Configuration Manager in a medium to large sized company

For those that have followed my blog over the last two years then you know that I am new to Service Mgt and indeed Configuration Mgt working on a CMDB pretty much from scratch.  Well, since my last post I can say that our CMDB is now live. Oh, before I forget for those that don't know CMDB = Configuration Management Database.  This blog is a an update on that and what challenges I continue to face and struggles with a tool which seems pretty cool and powerful, but with a desire to try and curtail my technical strengths and urges to spend hours/days/weeks trying to work out how to resolve a single problem and find a better way of doing something.  I guess thats the 17 or so years of being a UNIX Admin coming out.

Anyway, moving onwards.  We went live on the 27th of September 2014 on a Saturday.  It was all planned over several months.  Testing, re-testing, more testing, countless discussions with the vendor on what other companies are doing, what best practice is etc.. Trying to take into account what particular groups would want to see. That is, what would the network guys want ? what would the wintel teams see as useful ? Service Desk ? Midrange & Storage ?.  What do we do with the old legacy CMDB data which was downright awful - duplicates, triplicates, incorrect data.  How do I appease everyone ? How do I get everyone to come to the table to review and discuss their needs.  Heck, lots of questions right ???? If I said that I didn't have the answers for 50% of them but we still went live what would you say ?. We still pushed through thinking that whatever we get is a damn sight better than what we had.  Besides, as I like to call this CMDB, It's DYNAMIC ! Yep, it's not set in stone, I learn, I update the CMDB as we go along. I believe this term in Service Mgt is called "Continuous Service Improvement". ( Oh before I forget I am now ITIL Foundations Certified. )

So where are we today, 4 months after go live.  We have over 235K Configuration Items, we are starting to create some custom tables and apps for reporting purposes.  Audit history, SSL Certificate Tracking.  We have had 2 updates to our CMDB to improve certain functionalities and will have a few more over the next few months. Taking some additional time to discover and map storage devices - SAN, VTL, NAS heads.  Spending time on Business Services and mapping them to infrastructure components.  It's a massive task and will take some time still to become the source of truth.  It's even more challenging that I can safely say that I could quite easily spend 12 months working on this full time and still will not be satisfied. From what I am seeing it needs constant love, massaging - no, not porn like, but technical love and care.  Spending more time with tech teams to do more troubleshooting, more time with vendors and reading forums to determine best way to do things.

One of the things about a CMDB is the pretty pictures it produces :-)

Stay in touch ! Will keep you posted on this Service Management Journey of mine as an Ex UNIX Admin.

Cheers
Chris - the Certified ITIL Foundations man !