Just read an interesting article in Network World’s Systems Management newsletter, “The jury’s in on the CMDB, or is it?” From it, I’d like to pull out two ideas that caught my eye, one is “In fact, awareness of the term ‘CMDB’ outranked awareness of the term ‘ITIL’ by a significant percentage within the U.S. IT population. (Awareness of ITIL has been traditionally higher in Europe in particular.)” I think that the concept of a CMDB is much easier to wrap your head around than the multiple concepts pertaining to ITIL and Service Management and Service Delivery and… and… the list is a long one. But a common database that houses all your assets and connects the dots for you, well, that is somehow tangible and visible and just makes sense.
The other quote from Dennis is, “In almost all the ‘successful’ CMDB implementations that I’ve personally assessed, there has been a strong commitment to process and to change management processes in particular. In most but not all instances, this attention has been ITIL-driven, while in some it’s more a mix of ITIL and other best practice initiatives (and in one instance ITIL was thrown out and the CMDB was kept).” Threw out ITIL and kept the CMDB, now that is interesting. I guess one was more useful in that environment than the other. He does make the point that you need good processes in place in order to have a successful ITIL implementation. I suppose a corporate culture that isn’t driven by process and change management would struggle with ITIL and eventually give it up.
Which is more popular in your group, ITIL or the CMDB? Or are they so interrelated you can’t imagine one without the other?