August 5

CMDB, ITIL, IT, and Your Business

As I laid out in my last blog post, there’s a lot of data involved in managing IT assets and services that’s not only important to keep track of, but also critical to take action on. In your business, who does that? If you’re running a 20-50-person shop, you likely have, at most, 1-2 IT folks who keep your computers humming and connected to the networks and Internet.

Your typical on-site IT tech’s days are spent:

Troubleshooting existing issues
Upgrading systems
Patching operating systems and other software
Maybe testing changes before implementing them (if they have time)
Maybe analyzing and closing security vulnerabilities
Hopefully taking and verifying backups, and also securing those backups – Backups are a major data theft vulnerability, and also should be securely kept offsite in case of widespread catastrophe such as fire or flood.

It’s very unlikely that a small team has the time, training, or expertise to capture the kind and detail of data they should in order to properly manage your IT investments. It’s extremely unlikely they put what data they do capture to use for you.

The point is that a team of 1-2 people cannot do it all, and in the triage of daily IT operations, pulling out of the fray long enough and frequently enough to both collect and analyze data is unlikely. Further, it’s unlikely that the same people engaging in the day-to-day acrobatics of IT operations also have the depth of expertise and experience required to analyze and take action on whatever data is on hand.

Thrive has deliberately invested not only in the tools (CMDB: Configuration Management Database) required to captured detailed data about the configurations and devices in our clients’ environments, but also in training and specialization in ITIL practices. We have dedicated Configuration Management, Change Management and Problem Management roles in the organization, and have trained our engineers in Service Desk processes, Incident Management, and the battery of other processes specified in ITIL and management of the CMDB (Configuration Management Database) data sets. We are analyzing our CMDB to proactively identify opportunities and issues before they become urgent, or worse, “too-little-too-late” problems. Specifically, we are working to ensure you avoid outages and performance degradations, data loss, intrusions, license issues, and missed opportunity.

In summary to this rather long-winded proselytizing of ITIL and CMDB, collecting, tracking, and acting on data about IT requires time, effort, and expertise. If you aren’t doing it, you’re probably not reaping the full benefits of your IT investment. Technology is more likely a drain on your budget and efficiency than it would otherwise be, and you are at risk of business interruption, non-compliance with various regulations, and loss of critical data. Unless you have a crack in-house team that diligently follows process and stays current on the multitude of technologies your business depends on, it’s likely that you are at risk. With Thrive, you can leverage an IT team that is large enough to dedicate resources to the variety of knowledge areas required, as well as have the management overhead to create and adhere to the process required to consistently get quality results.