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Steph Morillo
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Welcome to ServiceNow® Configuration Management Database (CMDB) Are you ready to start your CMDB implementation journey? This guide gives you valuable information you can share with your team, including proven guidance and links to key resources—all designed to set you on the path to success. While this guide is primarily designed for ServiceNow platform owners, it also contains useful information if you have a different role in your organization. Let’s get started! |
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Guide Overview Here’s an overview of the topics we will cover in the guide:
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Start by familiarizing yourself with CMDB CMDB is an easy-to-use, cloud- based single system of record for your IT infrastructure and digital service data. When extended with Service Graph, CMDB can help you gain visibility into your IT environment and make better decisions. You can get an high-level overview of CMDB in its product page and datasheet, or take a look at these key CMDB features:
This Configuration Management Database (CMDB) Fundamentals course is comprised of the on demand courses and assessment simulator that will teach you how to implement a successful CMDB. If you are new to ServiceNow, we also strongly recommend that you take this very short Get Started with the Now Platform course to learn the platform basics. If you want a deeper dive into using the Now Platform, a longer ServiceNow Fundamentals course is also available. |
Benefits of CMDB:
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Identify your desired business outcomes The CMDB is unique among ServiceNow products and solutions because it serves as the digital foundation on which many teams will build and coordinate their business-critical services. Traditional technology services, technology operations, security operations, asset management, portfolio management and many other teams have a stake in the CMDB. ServiceNow has designed the CMDB to support all these products and uses. Of course, you will also want to ensure that the CMDB implementation tracks to the priorities of your organization and your specific use cases so make sure that there is a good understanding of priorities and frequent communication between implementers, stakeholders, and executive sponsors. The CMDB underpins most of the vital priorities in technology. Which are the most important for you to address with the technical intelligence in the CMDB? If you need to automate technology services and offerings: The CMDB maps the detailed infrastructure and services you currently provide via discovery. With a digital blueprint of your technology, you can seamlessly automate the resolution of outages and incidents, leveraging the power of AI to predict and prevent problems before they happen. Many catalog-based automations are available out-of-box if you have a trusted CMDB. Prioritize: Discovery including Service Mapping, Service Graph Connectors, Catalog, Change, Service Operations including predictive AIOps If you are concerned with reducing software, hardware, and cloud costs: The CMDB details the physical and virtual hardware in your technology stacks and the software running on them. This detail is necessary to right-size software licensing, manage technical debt, and proactively govern and manage your participation on multiple cloud providers. By organizing your infrastructure and technology projects into strategy-based application and technology portfolios, you can enable technology executives to make informed and strategic cost-informed decisions for your organization. Prioritize: Discovery, Catalog, Links to Enterprise, Hardware and Software Asset Management, Cloud Governance and Migration Assessment, Strategic Portfolio Management If your organization needs to optimize software development and/or bolster security operations: The CMDB provides crucial high level context such as, how applications relate to critical business capabilities. This enables you to assess accurately and mitigate risk. It also provides granular low-level detail about installed software, configuration settings, and versions that help security to quickly identify threats and track mitigation efforts. Prioritize: the Common Services Data Model (CSDM), Discovery, Change, Security Operations including Cloud Security Posture Management, Software Asset Management, configuration data management (CDM) for DevOps. |
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Chart a path to implementation If you have chosen to work with a ServiceNow partner or ServiceNow Expert Services for your implementation, it’s important to clearly communicate the business outcomes you want to achieve and agree on a well-structured roadmap to attain these goals. If you need guidance on successfully engaging with an implementation partner, this workbook is an excellent starting point. To accelerate time to value and reduce risk, make sure that your partner uses Now Create, ServiceNow’s library of more than 700 leading implementation practices. We also recommend you use Now Create if you are self-implementing, as it provides a wealth of assets designed to guide you to success. If you want to work with a partner but haven’t selected one yet, check out our Partner Finder or talk to your ServiceNow account representative about ServiceNow Expert Services. We can also work with your chosen partner to infuse our expertise into your implementation through our ServiceNow Co-Delivery service offering. For those of you who have purchased ServiceNow Impact services you will have ServiceNow experts and resources at your fingertips to help you through your implementation of CMDB and achieving your goals. If you do not have a ServiceNow Impact package, consider how having dedicated resources, discounted training, and jumpstart services can help you get the most out of your ServiceNow investment. Read more here. |
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Choose Self-implementation Build your team’s skills If you are planning to self-implement, you need to give your platform team the skills they need to succeed. The best way of doing this is to become a certified ServiceNow professional. We offer several certification paths for different roles on your team. Check out the links below:
Make your implementation smooth and easy For a comprehensive implementation process framework that is proven to scale to the largest, most complex global deployments, check out our Success Packs on Now Create. Success Packs tailor our core Now Create methodology consisting of more than 700 leading practices to deliver business outcomes aligned with specific product sets. Here’s the Success Pack for CMDB:
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Pro Tip Stick to out-of-the-box ServiceNow functionality wherever possible. The CMDB Process Guide provides detailed descriptions of “as designed” ServiceNow functionality for key CMDB capabilities.
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Prepare for organizational change To successfully deploy CMDB, you need your business to understand and use CMDB and recognize its benefits. To do this, you need to communicate what’s changing and why to both your end users and service desk agents. You also need to ensure that your agents are trained on ServiceNow CMDB. This webpage provides detailed guidance on how to plan for organizational change. If you need help creating a winning communications plan, this communications plan template also provides useful advice. The following courses are a great starting point for training your agents and other CMDB process users: |
Understand ServiceNow releases and upgrades If you’re not already on the latest ServiceNow release, we strongly recommend that you upgrade before you go live. By upgrading, you get new ServiceNow innovations into the hands of your users faster, get access to the latest performance and security enhancements, and ensure that support is there when you need it. To make your upgrade smooth and successful, look at these upgrade resources. |
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Bookmark these resources! ServiceNow Customer Success Center -- The CSC is a one-stop shop that gives you instant access to proven methodologies, leading practices, and expert insights and advice. NowSupport -- You can get technical issues resolved quickly by contacting our team comprised of ServiceNow employees with deep product knowledge and real-world experience. Read more here on how to use support. |
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