HP Universal CMDB

HP Universal CMDB is the Configuration Management database intended in order that the IT organizations could receive, document and store information on the configuration items (CI), interdependence of the services and the relations supporting business services. At integration into the Service Manager system, HP Universal CMDB saves actual state of EK and the relations of EK, and the Service Manager system saves the expected or managed status of EK. Service Manager traces requests for changes, bases and historical updates of EK in HP Universal CMDB.

According to the recent survey conducted by Gartner analytical company, the most popular desire of the consumer of IT services – to have clearer idea of components of infrastructure and their interrelations with each other. The organizations use this understanding for formation of justified solutions in change management processes or in need of identification of problems in infrastructure.

Crucial element at system implementation of management of IT resources, according to requirements of ISO 20000, the recommendations of ITIL, MOF, is the configuration database (CMDB) – the centralized repository of information on components of IT infrastructure and their interrelations. Information which is contained in CMDB is used in all ITSM processes. Gartner notes such necessary functional features of CMDB as federalism, consolidation/consolidation of data, display and visualization, synchronization.

HP Universal CMDB is implementation of the centralized repository of elements of IT infrastructure from Hewlett-Packard company and represents a versatile tool for tracking of interrelations of elements of IT infrastructure throughout their lifecycle. HP Universal CMDB makes the analysis and impact assessment of changes of this or that element on functioning of IT services in general. It combines all advantages of standard CMDB, however is not limited to them.

Standard CMDB provides, first, a possibility of automatic detection of changes in configuration units (CI) and their interrelations that allows to avoid manual entry of data. Secondly, consolidation and the connectivity of data that, as a rule, is a basic reason of investments into CMDB and different repositories. Thirdly, CMDB gives opportunities displays and the visualization necessary for transparent data view - from business services to devices of the most bottom level - in real time.

And, at last, change tracking allows to improve MTTR (time from the moment of failure and before maintenance) and to provide compliance audit to standards. For more complete understanding of importance of change tracking it is possible to give an argument that the majority of problems and failures in IT infrastructure arises not at an implementation stage, and at operational phases which, owing to modern conditions of business, often imply different changes, integration, movement of components, updating, etc. In the absence of due management of interrelations of objects it becomes almost impossible to control similar behavior of IT infrastructure. Besides, entering international markets, the organizations should conform to the accepted international standards, and to reach it it is possible only providing audit of accomplishment of these standards.

Along with these features of HP UCMDB gives the chance of expanded data management which means several components.

Access control. Providing the necessary rights to the "correct" users allows to avoid unauthorized use of information and to ensure safety of functioning of a system.

The analysis of influences represents the pro-active analysis of impact of changes on business services. Within opportunities of Universal of CMDB it is possible, for example, without making real conversions of infrastructure, to simulate any change and at once to understand – what it will affect in addition.

The expanded reporting allows to transform a data stream to useful information for work and the analysis.

Existence of work benches for integration with SOA (Software Development Kit) gives an opportunity of use of web services for interaction with SOA components.

Ample opportunities of management and flexible configuration that, eventually, provides expense reduction.

If to speak about technical features of UCMDB from NR, then here, first of all, it should be noted automatic detailed detection of OS, devices and applications. A system is capable to recognize more than 1600 servers and network devices from the list of vendors, including networks Cisco, Nortel, 3Com, Lucent, Nokia, etc., the servers Windows, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, Linux, Mac OSX, etc. and also some other devices (PBX, IP phones, printers, webcams and dr). UCMDB is also capable to identify more than 2200 applications and services among which there is J2EE (WebSphere, Weblogic, Tomcat, etc.), mail services (MS Exchange, Lotus Notes, Domino, etc.), databases (MS SQL, Oracle, Postgres, etc.), managing programs (Symantec Antivirus, Net Backup, BackupExec, CA ArcServe, BMC Patrol, Perform & Predict, Tivoli Access Manager, Tivoli Storage Manager, VNC, LanDesk, etc.) and even such programs as Quake3, Skype, etc.

UCMDB executes search of the servers supporting applications in network and is capable to identify applications, versions, server name, the used ports. All ports are brought together in the uniform directory which allows to sort them depending on a task (for example, all ports concerning web services).

Detection of interactions on traffic includes tracking of all network applications in real time, detection of type of the application, ports and the servers participating in the relations, the traffic associated with specific interrelations.

Very convenient feature of UCMDB is the possibility of visualization of all interrelations in network.

For example, defining interrelations of elements, it is possible to output data on all available networks/subnets with all elements which are in them; further it is possible to filter and look at data retrieveds on their topology of interaction. There is a possibility of creation of the corresponding representations which display only that part of data which is necessary. So, as one of opportunities of evident representation of interrelation in network there is a display of types of interrelation between servers.

In HP Universal CMDB there is a possibility of creation of the corresponding representations which display only that part of data which is necessary

It is not necessary to confuse representation of interactions of configuration units with representation of a tree of services or network topology in such instruments of operational monitoring as HP Operations or HP Network Node Manager and similar to them.

HP Universal CMDB gives the chance to independently add own types of configuration units, allowing to detect those elements of infrastructure which by default are unknown to a system.

In what way connectivity and coordination of data in HP UCMDB is guaranteed? Process of determination of coordination consists of three stages which guarantee lack of duplication and provide correctness of information.

At the first stage there is consolidation of data structures: data are entered via the detection system or API. The second stage – state management. At this stage adding, updates or removals of CI are monitored. The final stage - exception handling on the basis of the set business rules. The important place is taken here by change tracking in data: determination of standards of CI, audit of the planned and not planned changes. Changes can happen as at the level of separate CI (determination of reference configurations CI; use of the "enriching" rules for the notification in case of the made changes in a configuration; automatic reports generation on changes), and at the level of processes (providing data on the business risks connected with similar changes; the help in audit of process of changes and integration with the systems of the solution of the arising problems). The built-in abilities to manage and settings provide the correct data mapping in CMDB.

Providing access and safety of work with a system is based on a basis the politician, setting parameters of access for groups or certain users.

Except basic function of the centralized repository for tracking of cross impact of elements of IT infrastructure, Universal of CMDB allows to provide and visualize more accurately and fully data due to flexibility of reports ("Drag and drop" is requests to these CMDB for generation of context-dependent reports). Besides, Universal of CMDB provides a possibility of enrichment of data where adding of information enters into CMDB; the actions based on TQL in response to the arising exceptions; creation or enrichment of logical objects; user determination of time of "aging" of CI. Also there are settings of detection and reports on lifecycle. The last mean visualization of the status CI, proceeding from its lifecycle (development, testing, etc.)

The open architecture of HP UCMDB allows to use the existing resources for uniform, service-oriented management

HP UCMDB – one of key technology components of the concept of BTO (Business Technology Optimization). The open architecture of HP UCMDB allows to use the existing resources for the uniform, service-oriented management considering all available applications and providing that business continuity and its development.