Service Asset and Configuration Management

Configuration Management provides information about service asset components and the relationships that exist between the various components. This is essential to effective service management solutions since this information underpins all of the other processes particularly Incident, Problem, Availability and Change Management.

Configuration management activities include the following.

• management and planning
• configuration identification
• configuration control
• status accounting and reporting
• verification and audit
• information management

There are a few important concepts in this area that warrant definition.

• Configuration Items (CIs): Any component that needs to be managed in order to deliver an IT service. Information about each CI is recorded in a configuration record within the Configuration Management System and is maintained throughout its lifecycle by Configuration Management. CIs are under the control of Change Management. CIs typically include IT services, hardware, software, buildings, people and formal documentation such as process documentation and SLAs.

• Configuration Model: a model of the services, assets and the infrastructure that includes relationships between CIs, enabling other processes to access valuable information (e.g. assessing the impact of Incidents, Problems and proposed changes; planning and designing new or changed services and their release and deployment; optimizing asset utilization and costs).

• Configuration Management System (CMS): A set of tools and databases used to manage an IT service provider’s configuration data. The CMS also includes information about Incidents, Problems, known errors, changes and releases, and may contain data about employees, suppliers, locations, business units, customers and users. The CMS includes tools for collecting, storing, managing, updating and presenting data about all CIs and their relationships. The CMS is maintained by Configuration Management and is used by all IT Service Management processes.

• Configuration Management Database (CMDB): Stores configuration records containing Attributes of CIs and their relationships. A CMS may include one or more CMDBs. (The CMBD concept from ITILv2 confused the industry, so v3 added the concept of a CMS).

• Asset Management: Maintains information about assets of interest (including Configuration Items) in terms of their source, value, location, who controls them, who uses them, etc. It manages the entire life cycle of service assets, from procurement, through usage and maintenance, through disposition. It has a more administrative and clerical focus than Configuration Management.
• Configuration management (CM) is a process for establishing and maintaining consistency of a service's performance, functional and physical attributes with its requirements, design and operational information throughout its lifecycle.  Specifically, Yale is instuting Configuration Management to get a unified view that will drive Key Performance Indicators to accurately reflect the stability and viability of services.

Yale's first iteration of Configuration Management will be the creation of Business Service Maps that show the interrelationship of high-level components in the service delivery and infrastructure views.  The Business Service Map will be implemented using a simple hierarchical taxonomy.

Portfolio/Category [Def]
          |
          -- Business Service [Def]
                      |
                      --  Provider Service
                                   |
                                   --  Server
                                   -- Server(n)
                      --  Application
                                  --  Server(1)
                                   -- Server(n)
                                   -- Module
                                   -- DB Server
                                         -- Database

 Data for the relationships will initially be created by manual mapping.  Annual data certification will validate the enterprise service map from the top down.

This basic framework will allow for capturing of Service related metrics as all modules are transformed to have "Configuration Items" serve as the focal point for the event (Incident, Change, Problem, ...)