CMDB Deployment Checklist

jesusemelendezm · ‎06-19-2014

Hello ServiceNow people!

I am looking for a checklist or to do list - ServiceNow type of the things that should be set up in a enterprise environment in order to have a complete(if not impossible) CMDB.

For example: credentials, enabling SNMP, uploading none discover-able data, set up auto discovery schedules, etc).

It could be a list of steps or one thing you think It should be done in order to have a CMDB in place. I am not looking for process implementation since I know that ITIL will provide me that help but for the technical/software aspect of the ServiceNow Configuration App.

In advance thank you for your valuable input.

Regards

Community Alums · ‎06-20-2014

Jesus,

Perhaps I misunderstand your objectives here, but I question the approach of trying to get a "complete" CMDB. In fact, I highly discourage the idea of trying to have complete environment data in your CMDB. The topic is a bit taboo, and you can ask 20 people and get 20 different answers, but I would approach it initially from what information do you need to support some limited number of business services in complete and meaningful way. This allows you to focus on strategic arreas to provide value, and then expand from there.

Why this approach? Here are three quick reasons:

Every CI and relationship you create and maintain in the CMDB has a cost associated with it. The more you have, the more it costs in time and money spent to ensure accurate data.
If this data is not maintained, you cannot guarantee its accuracy when you try to use that data, which significantly decreases the value of your CMDB.
If you did manage to achieve nearly complete data, how much information would you need to sort through to get the information you NEED to accomplish a particular goal? Doest it become a game of "Where's Waldo?" to find that data?

With this in mind, my checklist would be:

Select three business critical business services to capture and map.
Identify the applications and infrastructure that support these business services.
Develop a plan to maintain this data and validate its accuracy (Desired State, Normalization, Data Certfication).
Plan for future expansion of the CMDB from here with a timeline, with an understanding that it may adjust based on new business services supported in your environment.

I hope this helps get you going or at least sparks some additional discussion.

View solution in original post

Community Alums · ‎06-20-2014

Jesus,

Perhaps I misunderstand your objectives here, but I question the approach of trying to get a "complete" CMDB. In fact, I highly discourage the idea of trying to have complete environment data in your CMDB. The topic is a bit taboo, and you can ask 20 people and get 20 different answers, but I would approach it initially from what information do you need to support some limited number of business services in complete and meaningful way. This allows you to focus on strategic arreas to provide value, and then expand from there.

Why this approach? Here are three quick reasons:

Every CI and relationship you create and maintain in the CMDB has a cost associated with it. The more you have, the more it costs in time and money spent to ensure accurate data.
If this data is not maintained, you cannot guarantee its accuracy when you try to use that data, which significantly decreases the value of your CMDB.
If you did manage to achieve nearly complete data, how much information would you need to sort through to get the information you NEED to accomplish a particular goal? Doest it become a game of "Where's Waldo?" to find that data?

With this in mind, my checklist would be:

Select three business critical business services to capture and map.
Identify the applications and infrastructure that support these business services.
Develop a plan to maintain this data and validate its accuracy (Desired State, Normalization, Data Certfication).
Plan for future expansion of the CMDB from here with a timeline, with an understanding that it may adjust based on new business services supported in your environment.

I hope this helps get you going or at least sparks some additional discussion.

ty_roach · ‎11-27-2019

A option to consider is the ServiceNow store App: Checklist Pro.

The problem with the OOB checklists is that they are unreliable, meaning, people can change the content of the checklist item after the fact, add items, delete items, change items. There's also no guarantee that the same checklist will appear for same situation. There is no way to restrict who can edit the checklist or when it can be edited (like do you really want people changing checklist responses after the record has been closed).

Enter Checklist Pro. We built Checklist Pro to solve all those problems and more. Checklist Pro application administrators can define when checklists get created and associated with records in a table (any table - not just those that extend TASK), when these checklists can be edited, when the associated record is considered "closed" (and thus should prohibit further checklist updates). We even added the ability to define "Required" checklist items that allow enforcement, thereby preventing a record from closing unless the required items are completed. We've built convenience Database Views to go with the most common checklist tables, which include TASK, SYSAPPROVAL_APPROVER, CMDB_CI.

They work in the Service Portal as well as in the Classic UI.

They'll work with other Scoped Applications (like HR or SecOps or even custom scoped apps & tables).

For more information contact TyGR LLC or goto our youtube channel to see it in action.

Also - besides the classic Checkbox Item, Checklist Pro allows you to include various data types, including Textbox fields, Date, Integer, Custom Choice Lists and Reference fields.