Laptop/ Desktop software in CMDB-CSDM: Is the final answer available?

[Ed Laar1]

Hi community,

As many of you also I am looking for the way to go regarding the registration of software that is running on laptops and desktops within the CMDB/CSDM models we have.

We have >1200 different software titles running on workplace hardware. Some of them do not have any support and for others a couple of different support groups are there.

I am considering to registrate these titles as software models (that can be used in catalog items to request such software) and for each title/software model to registrate one CI that can be used in incidents creations. What is the table to be used her: cmdb_ci_spkg with a reference towards the cmdb_model table?

According to CSDM I consider relating Business Service Offerings to the software CI's using Dynamic CI groups and the  to relate Technical Service Offerings using Dynamic CI groups to be able to assign incidents to the involved assignment group following the TSO.

Note: As in Incident creation the software title is selected as CI, we ask to add the laptop/ desktop name in the Incident comments.

What do you think about this one? Any other suggestions / best practises?

Ed

[Michael Dul]

Hi Ed,

We are using a very similar structure.

• Software Model -> CI in Software Class via Model ID
• CIs selectable on Incident
• Installations related between the CI and Personal Computers
• CIs grouped with Dynamic CI group and related to the Offering
• Related to the Business Service directly depending on the Capability

My only comments are:

• I am assuming you are using Dynamic CI group to relate them to the Business Offering to minimise the administrative overhead. Are you using a dependency relationship type?
• On the incident form, if you need structured data, you could create a dedicated data capture for the device but it depends how important are software incidents for your organisation
• I don't know how do you get the data to Software Models and if you have discovery. It is worth thinking about data separation if you have different data sources (e.g. there is a Desktop Software Class as child of Software)

But all in all, I would go with something very similar.

Best Regards,

Michael

[Ed Laar1]

Hi Michael,

The relationship Buisiness Service Offering > Software Title CI will be Depends on as this is also done for the BSO > Application Service CI.

The capture of the involved Hardware CI like the involved Laptop or Desktop is under investigation yet and depends on the need for this info on the Software Title Incident directly.

We will use the cmdb_ci_desktop_software class to register the Software Title CI's and we will do this manually in this stage. All of them will be related towards its Software model.

Thanks for your feed-back!!

Ed

[Jim41]

Were you successful with this flow for Laptop/ Desktop software in CMDB-CSDM: Is the final answer available?

We are going through this right now - has anything changed in 2 years?  Thank you