What is CMDB (Configuration Management Database)?

A Configuration Management Database (CMDB) stores and manages detailed configuration data about your organization’s IT infrastructure. This includes all hardware and software components and their relationships and dependencies, and it is used to track changes to the IT infrastructure throughout its lifecycle. By centralizing this information, a well-maintained CMDB allows you to improve the efficiency of your ITSM processes and make better business decisions.

How does CMDB work?

An accurate and up-to-date CMDB is a powerful tool for IT administrators and IT Operations teams. Once the CMDB has been populated with data about your organization’s IT infrastructure, it allows you to keep track of all IT assets and the configuration of those assets over time.

Every item within the CMDB is represented as a configuration item or CI. These CIs can be hardware or software assets, systems, locations, networks, databases, users, documentation, or any other construct within your IT infrastructure. ITIL 4 describes CIs as “any component that needs to be managed to deliver an IT service.”

To take full advantage of your CMDB as a single source of truth, you need to populate it with accurate IT data and keep that data up to date. A CMDB can be populated manually, which creates a lot of extra work for IT teams and is prone to human error.

To get the maximum value out of your CMDB, it needs to be accurate at all times and updated constantly. This means it’s better to have precise already data imported and updated automatically. The only manual work remaining is to review it for consistency and to fill in any information gaps.

Some CMDB tools have their discovery capabilities, though in most cases, data is brought in from multiple sources through data federation. However, gathering data from too many sources can lead to confusion. CMDB’s best practices often show it is better to get your information from one or just a couple of reliable discovery tools that seamlessly integrate with your CMDB software.

Once all your CIs are imported and their information is up to date, you can use this data to track changes, relations, and dependencies systematically. Using customized reports and dashboards, you can gain valuable insight into your IT infrastructure at a glance.

Having all IT information centralized in your CMDB allows you to quickly check on the status of your assets, identify potential problems, or plan for future changes. This is not to say that your gathered data should only live in the CMDB. Once everything is collected and organized, the data can be exported to other specialized tools to support specific projects. CMDB is often integrated with other IT management tools, like service desk software or incident management tools.

Know Your IT

The Lansweeper Deepscan engine discovers any asset in your corporate network without installing any software on them. There’s no environment or asset Lansweeper can’t handle.

Learn how Lansweeper can benefit your bussiness

Book a live demo with our specialist to discover how Lansweeper helps you to minimize risks & optimize your IT.