Implementing ITIL Configuration Management

The IT Infrastructure Library® (ITIL) places the “best practices” in IT operations at your command. ITIL helps you make better technology choices, manages IT more effectively, and drives greater business value from all your IT investments. The core of ITIL is configuration management: the discipline of identifying, tracking, and controlling your IT environment’s diverse components to gain accurate and timely information for better decision-making.

Now, there’s a practical, start-to-finish guide to ITIL configuration management for every IT leader, manager, and practitioner. ITIL-certified architect and solutions provider Larry Klosterboer helps you establish a clear roadmap for success, customize standard processes to your unique needs, and avoid the pitfalls that stand in your way.

You’ll learn how to plan your implementation, deploy tools and processes, administer ongoing configuration management tasks, refine ITIL information, and leverage it for competitive advantage. Throughout, Klosterboer demystifies ITIL’s jargon, illuminates each technique with real-world advice and examples, and helps you focus on the specific techniques that offer maximum business value in your environment.

Coverage includes

• Assessing your current configuration management maturity and setting goals for improvement
• Gathering and managing requirements to align ITIL with organizational needs
• Describing the schema of your configuration management database (CMDB)
• Identifying, capturing, and organizing configuration data
• Choosing the best tools for your requirements
• Integrating data and processes to create a unified logical CMDB and configuration management service
• Implementing pilot projects to demonstrate the value of configuration management and to test your planning

• Moving from a pilot to wide-scale enterprise deployment
• Defining roles for deployment and ongoing staffing
• Leveraging configuration management information: Reporting and beyond
• Measuring and improving CMDB data accuracy

Preface xvii

Acknowledgments xxi

About the Author xxiii

Chapter 1: Overview of Configuration Management 1

Part I: Planning for Configuration Management 17

Chapter 2: Gathering and Analyzing Requirements 19

Chapter 3: Determining Scope, Span, and Granularity 37

Chapter 4: Customizing the Configuration Management Process 55

Chapter 5: Planning for Data Population 67

Chapter 6: Putting Together a Useful Project Plan 85

Part II: Implementing Configuration Management 97

Chapter 7: Choosing the Right Tools 99

Chapter 8: Implementing the Process 117

Chapter 9: Populating the Configuration Management Database 127

Chapter 10: Choosing and Running a Pilot Program 137

Chapter 11: Communication and Enterprise Roll Out 149

Part III: Running an Effective Configuration Management System 161

Chapter 12: Building a Configuration Management Team 163

Chapter 13: The Many Uses for Configuration Information 179

Chapter 14: Measuring and Improving CMDB Accuracy 193

Chapter 15: Improving the Business Value of Configuration Management 207

Index 217

Larry Klosterboer is a certified IT architect specializing in systems management. He works for IBM’s global service delivery team out of Austin, Texas. Larry has more than 18 years of experience in service delivery, spanning technologies from mainframe to networking to desktop computing. His areas of focus have included network design, UNIX® systems administration, asset management, and most recently, implementing IT service management.