A while back I mentioned a company called Blue Line Graphics that was developing some great tools to visualize and management Atrium CMDB Data. Their newest product, the CMDB Workshop, is now in beta. It provides an efficient front end to manage large amounts of CI Data, and can be downloaded for a test.
Not long ago I came across a sexy little CI Viewer that I want to share. The company, Blue Line Graphics of Houston Texas, has one product in production, the CMDB Analyzer, and another in development. The CMDB Analyzer on first look, seems to be a well designed, adaptable front end for the Atrium CMDB. The integration was straight forward, and accomplished in minutes. The CMDB Analyzer comes with necessary features like launch in context feature and data export.
Blue Lines Graphics CMDB Analyser.
Blue Line Graphics’s other product, The CMDB Workshop, is still in development, but looks destined to increase capability with new functional like data model creation.
Where does a business service start and and an application system end? What differentiates the two?
In complex environments like ERP systems, the line can be blurry. The primary determinate is usually the location of the SLA/OLA’s. ERP systems can be tricky as they are made of many modules that can act as both as their own business service, and subcomponents of an application system, depending on how they are used by various groups. For example, the warehousing module maybe the only ERP application used by the warehouse group, but is only one of several modules used by the manufacturing group. In this case, the warehouse application will exist in the CMDB as an application system, and linked Warehousing business service. Intelligent organization of these relationships is critical, and here is an interview by Jeanne Morain called CMDB Implementation-Tips from a Pro.
I am often asked by organizations how they should start on the path to building a CMDB. There are multiple approaches, some companies take a top down approach, starting small with critical systems and gradually getting more complex. Others do the exact opposite, taking a bottom up approach of populating their CMDB with all assets, then sorting them to make sense. Whatever the approach, there are many fundamentals that are needed to ensure success. In his podcast, The CMDB Architect’s Toolkit, Paul Buffington discusses many tips, tricks, and important rules for project teams starting a CMDB.
