FireScope Configuration Management Database : Enterprise-Edition

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• Overview
• Features
• Solutions
• Architecture
• Value

Business Service Management needs a methodology for process improvements (like ITIL or CoBIT) and a configuration management strategy with the goal of a complete and federated CMDB in order to deliver service guarantees for the entire corporation, business driven IT-Service quality and a productive alignment between business and IT services goals. FireScope CMDB is the central backbone technology that dynamically connects business oriented IT-Services with the underlying IT-Infrastructure.

CMDB by Design

Unlike other "CMDB" type product vendors, FireScope CMDB has not created a solution just to have a presence in the CMDB market in order to strengthen and protect its product offering.

FireScope CMDB was originally designed and developed by the Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, as a platform independent Configuration Management Database following ITIL Service Management best practices for enterprise-class environments and large data centres. The software architects had the following goals in mind:

• Bringing and keeping the IT infrastructure under control
• Providing accurate, detailed and up-to-date information about its constituent components and their relationships
• Enhancing security control over ‘valuable’ CIs
• Improved adherence to legal and contractual obligations (internal and external)
• Providing optimal service to customers at justifiable cost
• Reducing operational risk and ensuring business continuity by gathering data on trends in CI-related incidents and problems and identifying business services that may be at risk from a planned change

Business Service Management needs a methodology for process improvements (like ITIL or CoBIT) and a configuration management strategy with the goal of a complete and federated CMDB in order to deliver service guarantees for the entire corporation, business driven IT-Service quality and a productive alignment between business and IT services goals. FireScope CMDB is the central backbone technology that dynamically connects business oriented IT-Services with the underlying IT-Infrastructure.

CMDB by Design

Unlike other "CMDB" type product vendors, FireScope CMDB has not created a solution just to have a presence in the CMDB market in order to strengthen and protect its product offering.

FireScope CMDB was originally designed and developed by the Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, as a platform independent Configuration Management Database following ITIL Service Management best practices for enterprise-class environments and large data centres. The software architects had the following goals in mind:

• Bringing and keeping the IT infrastructure under control
• Providing accurate, detailed and up-to-date information about its constituent components and their relationships
• Enhancing security control over ‘valuable’ CIs
• Improved adherence to legal and contractual obligations (internal and external)
• Providing optimal service to customers at justifiable cost
• Reducing operational risk and ensuring business continuity by gathering data on trends in CI-related incidents and problems and identifying business services that may be at risk from a planned change

• Built-In Data Federation and Reconciliation Infrastructure
• Built-In Change Management
• Built-In Application Server
• Built-In Workflow and Business Process Automation

Common CMDB Functionality

FireScope CMDB naturally also provides the functionality you would expect from any CMDB. Without going into too much detail, we consider CMDB standard functionality to be:

• Model - Build a complete IT environment as a set of Configuration Items with your CMDB.
• Map - Define all dependencies required to associate these Configuration Items.
• Connect - Exchange data between the CMDB and any set of other systems.
• Track - Complete history of all changes made to Configuration Items and Relationships.
• Find - Search functions to research information stored in the CMDB.
• Alert - Notification methods to report on changes and special interest information states.
• Analyze - Analysis functions to research dependencies and impacts of changes made.
• Protect - Permissions management to scope access and change authorizations for Configuration Items and Relationships.

Top 3 Reasons for implementing a CMDB

When asked why an IT organization needs a CMDB for Knowledge Management, FireScope clients consistently state:

• Integrate disconnected IT configuration and process details into a consistent configuration management schema.
• Implement a single repository available for all business processes to access, share and change systems configurations.
• Enforce a solution architecture that allows controlled growth and change in a stable and manageable environment.

FireScope CMDB helps companies to implement their vision of Business Service Management, and to complete business critical initiatives successfully. Typical business areas supported by FireScope CMDB are:

• Change and Configuration Management
• Data Center Power and HVAC Management
• Capacity Management and Planning
• Application Services Management
• Event and Service Impact Management
• IT Asset and Service Management
• Service Level Management
• Compliance Management
• Configuration Intelligence

A Knowledge Management System is the central backbone technology that dynamically connects business oriented IT-Services with the underlying IT-Infrastructure. It needs to integrate with systems management software as well as with business applications and business processes. The implementation of a CMDB is a continuous long-term project whose value steadily increase over time. A well designed, flexible and extendible architecture is therefore of vital importance, as it allows to adapt for change. This has also been taken into consideration in the design of the configuration items as core objects of a CMDB.

The 7 layers are briefly described here from top to bottom - from the underlying foundation to the information output.

Physical Datastore Layer

FireScope CMDB is delivered as an appliance, where all data is stored using an industry standard database.

Configuration Management Layer

This is the logical data store layer. It contains the core components which define objects & item types, associations, meta data, security, etc.

Multiple, discrete sets of objects, items and Associations are supported within one instance of FireScope CMDB 7. In addition, the transportation of all items between instances of FireScope CMDB 7 is supported.

Integration Layer

The Integration Layer is the foundation of the Federation & Reconciliation Infrastructure. It allows user to integrate and federate data from and to other data sources and provides the following functionality:

• Import and export of data using SQL statements
• Rule based information reconciliation
• Bulk data insertion using CSV files
• SOAP based Web Service Interface for interactive application integration. Allows integration with J2EE or .NET applications
• Ad-hoc and stored data sources data set definitions
• Bulk de-normalized data table generator to integrate with traditional RDBMS based data warehouse concepts

Business Process Layer

The business process layer will be delivered through embedded OEM components and will be available only as part of FireScope CMDB. The business process layer will have the following core functionalities:

• Workflow Integration
• Message based integration systems
• Integration of Inbound and outbound Email & Web Services
• UI driven business process definitions
• Change Management Layer

The embedded change manager enables you to proactively manage planned changes. All change management objects are extendable objects in the logical data store. Preflight change review capabilities detect all systems that may be affected by a planned change, ensure that the system owners a are automatically notified and that no change takes place without the appropriate approval processes. An integrated change calendar allows change managers to define change windows and helps planning scheduled changes.

Application Service Layer

Easy to use templates allow users to extend the FireScope CMDB Web Portal by adding application specific data entry and process management pages. The security model integrated into FireScope CMDB extends to custom pages and protects your data. By leveraging Meta Data capability you can achieve a level of automation and insert specific behavior into predefined objects.

FireScope CMDB is a web-based application and all style sheets are fully customizable using standard PHP scripting. Similarly you can customize FireScope CMDB to allow for the integration of 3rd Party Applications into FireScope CMDB 7 or for the integration of FireScope CMDB 7 into 3rd Party Applications.

Reporting & Dashboard Layer

FireScope CMDB has a build in Reports Editor, which enables you to automatically leverage associations and dependencies while building reports. The scope of the reports may vary from global to group and user reports. Reports can be displayed as tables or graphs and may include security integrated data filtering and drill-down options. Users can create their own Individual dashboard views which allow for a fast assessment of IT infrastructure changes and KPI.

The integration of 3rd Party reporting solutions is encouraged and supported.

An investment in FireScope CMDB delivers these business values:

 

FireScope - 'fi(- &)r 'skOp - A light-mapping instrument, invented by a diamond dealer, designed to make the smallest imperfections of a diamond visible to the naked eye. At FireScope, we believe that a pristine network is as valuable as a diamond, and that any threat or imperfection should be made visible to the naked eye.