CSDM without a formal CMDB?

[danwright]

Hello,

What parts of CSDM can you implement without a formal CMDB? Specifically, thinking about what is coming with CSDM 4.0. 

What are the points of value that you will get out of implementing CSDM without a formal CMDB?

Is it even possible to implement CSDM without CMDB? Has anyone done this?

Does it make sense to start with CSDM in Quebec (our current version), Rome, or just jump to San Diego so we don't have to consider any upgrade effort for the rest of the year which will let us concentrate on priority roadmap efforts?

Any help and opinions of expertise are greatly appreciated.

Best Regards,

Dan Wright - UC Davis

[edkester]

First, remember what the CSDM actually is -> it is simply the rules on how to 'wire up' your CMDB.  So, when you say you don't have a formal CDMB I'm assuming that you mean that you don't have discovery running to discover your infrastructure CI's and those CI's maintained by discovery.   That being said, the parts of the CMDB that contribute to defining your application [e.g., APM, etc.] would not be maintained by discovery anyway and are the non-discoverable meta data defining your application ... so ... it would be a good exercise to build out that part [but I wouldn't go back further than Quebec].  Also, the SDLC component in CSDM 4.0 is only the class cmdb_ci_sdlc_component which could be installed with the plug-in CI Class Models if you wanted to ... and you really don't need to use that to build out your application data model anyway.

 ... so ... I would say it's always a good idea build out your application model(s) even if you don't have your infrastructure to go with it and see how your APM dashboards, etc. can add value.  A good example of this is when you integrate ServiceNow DevOps to your CSDM you're focused on defining the overall Application and how that connects to your pipeline stages at the application service level and not really focused on the discoverable infrastructure level.

hope this helps?

[Stig Brandt]

Hi Dan

It is very interesting to start without CMDB - and start focusing on customer/end user experience, therefor you only need to create business application, application service and then a business service / offering that is visible to the end users and used to raised tickets - and all these records requires only manual work, you can then add all the infrastructure components later on using tools to populate the cmdb..

Focus on end user and create values for them, they are the customers of IT, so in short you don't need servers, load balancers, network components in that respect.

Cheers / go4it

Stig

[Barry Kant]

I do agree, it is a so-called bare minimum model. When nothing exist it is potentially the first enabler to build upon.

You could even do only:

• Business Services and Business Service Offerings
• Technical Services and Technical Service Offerings

And relate the Business Service Offerings to all Technical Service Offerings that are part of that solution. With this very basic set up you can:

Do ticket intake/registration, and route it to the supporting parties. Can be achieved quite fast.

Cheers,

Barry

[SebastianKunzke]

Hi Barry,

I do agree, that a bare minimum model is required, but I would add to your model a minimum layer of application services. 

In my understanding of the CSDM framework you should spend the time to model your applications. For sure you are able to do service without it, but in my understanding an high application understanding also helps the service desk to understand, where could be the issue. This also will help to implement the software/hardware CMDB in a later stage without remodeling your services.

Related to the question of danwright, I would add: The foundation data of CSDM should be implemented no matter, if I have a CMDB or not. The implementation of a service structure depends at the end to the use case they want to solve.

Kind regards 

Sebastian