Orphan rules - Recommended rules?

[PaulSylo]

Hi All -

What are the Best practices or Orphan Rules to be configured to manage the Orphan CI in CMDB? Is there anything apart from -  Assigned owner or managed by is empty?

What are the rules in "General" to be configured?

[HIROSHI SATOH]

Best Practices for Managing Orphan CIs in CMDB (Configuration Management Database):

To effectively manage orphan CIs (Configuration Items) in the CMDB, several best practices and rules can be configured. Here’s a breakdown of key considerations:

1. Orphan CI Identification Rules:

• Assigned Owner or Managed By is Empty:
  This is the most common rule to identify orphan CIs. If the fields for "Assigned Owner" or "Managed By" are empty, the CI may be considered an orphan, as there is no clear ownership or management responsibility.

• Inactive/Retired Owner or Managed By:
  Ensure that CIs are not assigned to users or groups that are inactive or retired. If they are, the CI should be flagged for reassignment or review.

• No Recent Activity:
  Consider CIs as orphaned if they haven’t had any updates or related incidents, changes, or tasks within a specified period. This could indicate that the CI is no longer actively managed.

• Disconnected from Parent CIs:
  If a CI is no longer linked to any parent CI or service, it could be considered orphaned, especially if it’s supposed to be part of a larger system or service.

• Lack of Relationship Records:
  CIs with no active relationship records (no upstream or downstream dependencies) might indicate that they are no longer part of the current infrastructure.

2. General Rules to be Configured:

• Regular Validation Checks:
  Implement regular automated checks to ensure that all CIs have a valid assigned owner, are actively managed, and are correctly linked to other CIs and services.

• Ownership Transfer Workflows:
  Establish workflows for the automatic transfer of ownership when a CI’s owner or manager leaves the organization or their role changes.

• Notification Alerts:
  Set up notifications for CIs that are flagged as orphaned. This allows the responsible teams to take action before these CIs cause issues.

• Lifecycle Management:
  Ensure that CIs go through proper lifecycle management processes, including decommissioning or reassigning orphaned CIs.

• CI Relationship Audits:
  Periodically audit CI relationships to ensure they reflect the actual infrastructure and service dependencies.

[Alan Prochaska]

Hi @PaulSylo 

We'd make a different suggestion re Orphan Rule than Satoh-san below.

Orphan rule is all about relationships.  Most CIs should have a parent by relationship.  Some may have multiple parents:  consider a business application which could have parents that are business capability, application product, business service, and possibly others.  If the relationship is mandatory, make an orphan rule for it.  If it's optional, then no.  If a CI doesn't have an orphan rule (at least one parent) that means it's at the top of its tree with nothing above it. 

We recommend against managing the relationships implicitly through a Parent reference attribute or ownership attributes.  Those are different, and exceptions there don't constitute orphans.  Orphans are lost sheep that should be related but aren't.  Don't overwork the concept. 

Similarly, lack of update in x time period is staleness, not orphan.

Hope that helps.