What is RapidCMDB

Just what is this CMDB?

ITIL v3 defines a CMDB as "A database used to store Configuration Records throughout their Lifecycle. The Configuration Management System maintains one or more CMDBs, and each CMDB stores Attributes of CIs, and Relationships with other CIs." Better alignment of IT with the business objectives has been a long time goal, and is increasingly becoming the mantra for IT organizations. Many IT organizations have bought into the benefits of IT service management (ITSM) and business services management (BSM) approaches as better ways to align IT with business and improve the quality of services IT delivers to business.

Configuration Management Database, CMDB, is considered to be a key enabler for both ITIL/ITSM and BSM implementations. Yet as it is often the case, the term CMDB means different things to different people; and the vendor tendencies to fit the terms to their own product portfolios contribute to the pollution of the terminology.

Enter RapidCMDB, a federated solution for the enterprise

A federated CMDB provides users a unified, consistent mechanism to utilize data that may be residing in disparate data sources seamlessly, without having to understand exactly where the data resides or the technology behind accessing the data.

RapidCMDB is a federated CMDB solution for the enterprise. It can be used to implement a configuration management system that consists of one or more trusted data sources (CMDBs as defined in ITIL or other systems that hold configuration data), as well as creating service models to enable BSM implementations.

RapidCMDB is being designed from ground up as a federated CMDB. RapidCMDB uses an object based data store that can be used as a data store on it own, however through federation, it ensures scalability and provides access to data in existing sources, eliminating problems associated with rip and replace, data duplication, synchronization, etc.

CMDB Federation Workgroup recently published a draft specification which appears to be designed to enable one CMDBs to exchange data with other CMDB implementations from different vendors. RapidCMDB is not a traditional CMDB. It is designed specifically to create a unified CMDB through federation leveraging existing data sources that are not necessarily databases.

IT organizations already have number of tools that hold valuable configuration data, and moving this data from these tools to traditional CMDBs and keeping the data in the CMDB up to date can be significant undertaking. RapidCMDB can not only federate data from other CMDBs, but also data that may reside in other management systems as well.

Not just a relational database

RapidCMDB attempts to implement a "dimensional database". RapidCMDB can also be described as a "meta-database", a database that references other data sources.

By decoupling the model from the data, RapidCMDB provides a consistent, unified way to access data held in many different locations without having to understand where the data resides or the technology behind accessing the data.

Houston, we have a problem!

Despite the recent popularity of CMDB and BSM, implementation of these technologies continue to be a problematic due to both technical and organizational challenges. RapidCMDB is very much a pragmatic solution. We acknowledge the fact that the toughest challenges being faced in CMDB/BSM implementations are organizational as well as technological. RapidCMDB is being designed from the ground up with this awareness.

Most IT organizations already have many repositories of configuration information in place. Data may be residing in element managers, monitoring systems that have discovery capabilities, service desk solutions, desktop management tools, etc. Yet the configuration data from these various disparate systems is typically cannot be accessed in a unified way, and therefore not available to support IT processes.

Traditional approach to create one big database (CMDB) and populate it with data from all these systems is proven to be costly and often not feasible technologically. The federated model promoted by all major CMDB vendors and the standardization effort is an acknowledgement of this limitation.

How is RapidCMDB different?

RapidCMDB offers creation of a model as an abstraction above all existing repositories to make it available in a unified way. It does not require data to be extracted, transformed and loaded (ETL) from their existing tools into a centralized database, which introduces synchronization, scalability, and timeliness problems.

RapidCMDB only holds the model and the meta data (but not necessarily the data itself) to enable access to information in disparate data sources in a consistent way.

RapidCMDB can be used to model in any data store, not just data in CMDBs or databases It can (and will) leverage any technology to access the data and does not rely only on standards that may or may not materialize for federation. Configuration data often resides in management tools with internal repositories in non relational formats.

Unlike most CMDB offerings, RapidCMDB is a low risk proposition. It can be implemented incrementally and is not a massive undertaking. It keeps the disruption to existing systems at minimum.