hey this is troy with now with troy hey this is troy now with troy uh restart a little bit uh got a warning from linkedin about something my streaming is set up but anyway welcome to another workflow wednesday it is august and i can't believe that i've been at servicenow i'm pointing to now with troy but i've been with servicenow for a month and it's been an amazing ride and look forward to the adventure ahead i'm just getting into it um but as you know anyone that that you've run across me i've been around the servicenow ecosystem for a long long while you can see you know some of the the partners that i've been involved with up there are missing one still looking for the right thing to put up there from that one and if you know who you are left some swag but anyway today one of the things i want to talk about is what is a servicenow cmdb and why does it matter so much every niche in the planet has their acronyms and their acronyms almost become part of the vernacular they do and it has more than their share of acronyms the cmdb is one that if you walk around i.t or you're part of it you've no doubt heard about it if you are a configuration manager it consumes the bulk of your brain thinking about the cmdb well i want to take a step back and say what on earth is it yeah what is it from a servicenow standpoint and then spend some time talking about why it matters so much in and why bring this up why on the 10th of august would i be talking about the cmdb is because as i've worked with clients in the past and as we work with clients here in servicenow and i talk to different account teams one of the messages it keeps coming up over and over again is this cmdb is is causing me headaches those headaches come in a number of different forms we'll get to those we'll find some recommendations and some paths forward but first step back you're not if you're not from it what the heck is this cmdb that people are talking about first what it stands for is a configuration management database cmdb configuration management database so let's take that and break that down a little bit configuration management is in terms that we'll work with further the simplest ones are the db it's a database it's a collection of information and so those first two letters the cm are crucial for our understanding of what the cm db is configuration management is really this discipline in it and it can expand an outside of it we'll talk about some different layers that we're seeing in the marketplace in a little bit but configuration management if i abstract it some it means i'm keeping track of the things and we'll talk about those a little bit more because there's another acronym that shows up there they were talking about the things that matter to the organization that i want to put some controls around i want to have some awareness in and that awareness could be you know when do i buy it you know what's its life cycle and when do i sunset it what is it touching what is it connected with all the information that would help me understand all the things and those can be physical or logical all those things that help run our organization how do i keep track of them that's configuration management and where you store that is in a database servicenow is a platform that has built across a single database that can be intertwined interconnected with a secure model on it even has data encryption built on it and it's built into the cloud and can extend i mean i could go on and on about the platform capabilities first now but for this if you think about configuration management putting it into a database across your enterprise what if you had one place to go to say where are the things that help connect together to build the capabilities to run our internal processes as well as our customer facing processes those reside in the cmdb that make sense from that standpoint again this is live you can find me on linkedin twitter and youtube um and in theory anytime you type in some chats i should be able to see it and so you know love creating the content but also like to hear from you so if the cmdb is a database where we put the things we care about that run our organization what are those things maybe you've heard or you've used the acronym a ci or an asset and some will say those are very very different others will say that you know my ci's are asset my assets are cis let me talk about those a little bit and so configuration management our cmdb holds the things that we care about to run the business a configuration item that's a key a ci is a configuration item it's something that i put into my configuration management database that i want to manage and track i'll track the attributes who's responsible for it who supports it maybe there's some specific attributes for that type of thing maybe it's a server i want to know the serial number i want to know what things are on it or maybe it's a power supply or a data center and i want to know its physical location all of those attributes go into the table for that specific configuration item or ci all of that is what fits in the cmdb i also mentioned asset if i were going to be very strict i would say a configuration is anything i want to manage an acid is anything that i want to track the the financial aspects of it that there's an investment there's depreciation there's sunset there's off-boarding there's trying to recruit any of those funds it's all the financial management of it and so in it from a very academic or strict standpoint ci's are things i want to track from business perspective put it into my cmdb and asset are things that i want to track the financial basis of and understand the impact of those assets rcis but not all cis who think about a logical construct that doesn't have financial basis to track and so not all ci's are an asset religious conversation or a very confrontational conversation could be had about what's a ci what's an asset it's okay take a step back from a standpoint for us to really care about optimizing business and why it matters ci asset either one there's some similarities and we can leverage whatever fits in your organization but just know if you really step back there are some different focuses from a financial basis for just a configuration management basis and what things are in there so we talked about cmdb we talked about cis and assets but the next step is why does it really matter if your configuration manager or you're deep inside of it you may hear man i need my cmdb i have to build it out and some of that is you know i want to track the things that are there so i know when someone says the server's down where do i go and look who do i who do i get support from and and often in the past prior to servicenow and some other solutions that's been tracked in spreadsheets and that's a nightmare to maintain and so from just a pure i.t standpoint getting that all into that cmdb that centralized database i can know here all the cis the configuration items that matter for our organization that helps that's kind of the first layer of value the next layer that goes on top of it is where we start building in relationships this ci is built on this ci which is supporting this ci which is connected to this ci all of that intertwined relationship gets us to what you know we can understand as business impact there's things like service mapping and discovery and and all the different ways to map out all these ci's interrelate that's where another acronym right i should have warned you right that there's another one that shows up maybe you've heard about it maybe it's maybe you've seen someone type or someone talk about a csdm sounds similar but what csdm stands for is common service data model and what the common service data model is and it's it's progressed so far servicenow has released version 4 of that just last year and and what it extends is is a functional model to say here's the different classes in the relationships that you can see that go from these technical components the devices that you plug into your network as they connect together to build applications to build logical services to really understand what are the business services that run your organization so that when one server goes down you can very quickly say what's impacted is that a revenue generating application directly affecting customer services or is it something that's affecting a development team that that works in back in the back room without anyone else affected by it the urgency to address the issues on those incidents now can be prioritized based on the impact the csdm common services data model is a logical construct to help us figure out what are the different classes that reside in our cmdb to build those relationships to get us a better understanding of impact so if we think about different layers of why the cmdb matters and why build out this journey along this csdm is where do you get value inside your organization one is is understanding what things do i have populating the cmdb there's manual there's automated ways to do that there's multiple streams that feed into it and you know working with servicenow and working with your partners to identify where those are is crucial to populating that in an automated way doing some data certification on it so you understand who owns it and keeps it up to date is crucial the next layer of value is relating that to your it service management processes so you know which things are down when finding ways to use that so we can use predictive intelligence or machine learning to do auto assignment and perhaps some auto healing based on what's going on based on the impact from your common services data model you can see how the impact keeps or the value keeps growing as we build that out the other thing to look at is look beyond it service management security is a forefront if you've been around my channel you know that i keep talking about the cyber attack surface is growing and you know the people hacking are different than decades past having that accurate model of what things are in our environment so we can tackle them and understand where there's impact if you step back and think about that from a cso standpoint of i found a vulnerability where i have the idea that there's a security incident occurring over here which configuration items cis are involved in that vulnerability or security incident if all i have is that that entry or perhaps the security systems founded in our it systems didn't that's even worse we don't know the context when we have a fully built out cmdb with some of that common services data model built on top of it now we have much better insight to say this is a vulnerability that has personal information on it has payment information on it has health information on it you know data breach to that could have great impact huge impact if we're working in the life sciences even more so when you think about impact that could cause human harm connecting our security systems into a built-up cmdb with a common service data model give us such tremendous insight to understand you know priority and prioritization of security incidents and vulnerabilities more impact from building out your cmdb the other way that it extends is is really looking at where do i have configuration items and one of the things we've seen at servicenow particularly in the manufacturing space and we've seen this and from a security standpoint too is all of the technology that is on the machine floor on the operational floor is important and it's crucial for our operations it's different than i t but again if i step back and say what is it i have independent devices interconnected to provide services it's called operational technology now in my past i came from that environment i used to build non-contact laser sensors and robotics that build automated processes that worked on the machine floor so i can relate to the need to understand the operational technology and understand what are the vulnerabilities there from a cyber security standpoint but also if something goes down how is it impacted and what does it affect you know which manufacturing line goes down if this server goes down if i lose a plc what's that going to affect and and how do i get it back up where is it located how do i find it all of that information can be stored in an operational technology portion of our cmdb what it's taking is that fundamental concept of a cmdb and expanding it into other needs we talked about i.t we talked about security we talked about operational technology one of the things that leads to two is you know coming out newer releases we're finding enterprise service manager asset management enterprise asset management takes some other things that aren't ite they're not operational technology but they're things that have asset they have financial value but we need to track where they are a common use case for this is is in life sciences let's say i have a medical bed a medical equipment that could move around the facility and there's a limited quantity of them i need to track where they're at and they need to make sure they're in use so how do i know when sitting in the store room not being utilized or when one goes down and i have some alerting some event management saying hey there's this issue on this device how do i know where it is using enterprise asset management we can bring all of those non-it non-ot assets into the service configuration management database and help us perform functions against it that improves the experience of where work flows each one of those is extending and expanding the value we get from our cmdb undoubtedly we'll come up with more things you know i didn't even talk about any of the telco solutions or any of the field service solutions where i need to go and provide for you know either reactive service or predictive service or as i'm dealing with customers how do i understand where they're working on all of that is built in a basis for the common services data model and the cmdb one of things to think about too is you know how to build that out and here's where servicenow stands as as a services account executive one of the things that i get to do is work alongside our account teams and our partners to help you get the most value from servicenow have us come in and sit down with you to help you understand where are you on this journey there's multiple legs to understand where to leverage a cmdb are you at that basis point i need a cmdb i need to get out of spreadsheets find a path to figure out where your sources are is it all spreadsheets do you have sccm do you have other reporting devices solarwinds or others that can provide you information that we can coalesce find ways to look for duplication and identify what things are truly unique so we come up with one record for each of those things those cis that are in your environment glad to sit down and help you figure out where you might have issues where you might have things where you thought you put it in the right class but you maybe there's a better way there's so many different classes inside the cmdb and part of that comes from our vast experience with customers understanding how do you classify or segment the configuration items we put into servicenow we've built those out and we can help you build that capability into servicenow and really clarify where you're putting data and clean it up so you're getting the right things and build that in there the next step is is determining how you get that next step of value how do you identify ownership and how do you connect it with your i.t service management processes that analysis comes in and we'll have look at your itsm processes make sure that incident and change and problem and request are using the cmdb information to understand you know who are the approving parties and and the support parties that are involved is as well as how do we know where that device is because where is is crucial when things go down and so again help build out that layer the next really depends on your organization are you looking at security or you're manufacturing looking at operational technology looking at some of the things in field service looking at some enterprise asset or looking at its at management looking at where do you have soffit software or hardware asset spend that you'd like to optimize each of those help build in more value so working with either servicenow or your partner we can help you know sit down with you understand where you add on these journeys these paths and figure out what's the quickest time to value to help you improve your cmdb extend that common services data model and find value from each of those steps and i'd challenge you or yeah i'd encourage you that's a better term uh to say that you know anytime you look at saying i need to improve my cmdb be sure that you have a solid answer to why we want to add this why because we'll be able to identify the impact of those outages or incidents better why because we'll be able to prioritize our security incidents and vulnerabilities as they come in faster because we know the implications to our business services spending time with why is how you'll be able to track the value that you get from your investment in your cmdb and it also helps keep that data current if you've been around any type of database you know one of the biggest challenges is you know twofold first how do i get the data in there and then two how do i keep it current accurate up-to-date and valid with a cmdb the way to address the first one is using tools like servicenow's discovery and finding all the different sources coalescing it into a true single source so it's automated things are coming in but the next step to keep it live and current and accurate is finding ways to use that data without use it will go stale and so as you provide more value it does too full or you look at other ways to use that data it does two things one it gives you value because op you're improving prioritization you're identifying implications for other services but you're also keeping it up to date one of the things that i'll look at is if if i roll back in my experience we started using our common services data model to identify approvers for change requests that did a number of different things one it optimized the amount of changes that had to be manually removed because so many were done you know through electronic automation and electronic approvals that bypassed the need for manual meetings and reviews but it also you know let's say i get a i'm a change approver and i get a change for something that really isn't in my space anymore why am i getting these the answer is i as a service owner did not update the dependencies relationships and they're stale so if something is being changed here it ripples up and says i'm accountable for it i need to update the cmdb it gets me actively involved in making sure that as things change i disconnect relationships and likewise add new ones if you've worked in it and you've been a product owner or a service owner and you've had something go live and and then later you've had a change go and knock out your service and you never got notified you never were involved in a change request again that points back to where's that relationship how do i update the cmdb because my service depends on this and this and this that's the type of thing that improved the data quality tremendously because we're actively putting that approval as a dependency on the data it helps keep it active and so again uh as we come to a close what is the servicenow cmdb it is the common services data or it is the configuration management database it is that place where we put all the things that come together both physical and logical to build the services and capabilities for internal employees and our customer facing processes that's the cmdb inside that cmdb as we relate those together we can use servicenow's common services data model to understand what those relationships should look like as we build that out it's not an exercise for database improvement it's an exercise for enabling and unlocking value make sure you have the value conversation starting with y and so with that and if you have any other questions don't hesitate to reach out i'm easy to find on linkedin and i look forward to meeting you again next week if you have other topics you know reach out let me know that you'd like to see what is servicenows insert your blank but cmdb we're doing much more digging in with our clients to figure out how do we jump in assess where you're at with these journeys and give you some direction and recommendations on what are your next steps ahead again thank you so much have a great week and i'll see you on the next workflow wednesday thanks bye