Configuration Management Database (CMDB) is a centralized repository that stores information on all the significant entities of your IT environment. The entities, termed as Configuration Items (CIs) constitutes of hardware, software applications, documents, business services and people that are part of your IT system. CMDB is designed to support a vast IT structure where the interrelation between the CIs are maintained and supported.
Each CI within the CMDB is represented with:
- Attributes: Data elements that describe the characteristics of CIs under a CI Type.
- Relationships: The link between two CIs that identifies the dependency or connection between them.
CMDB functions as an effective decision making tool by playing a critical role in impact analysis and root cause determination. To setup CMDB, the administrator must first set up the following configurations under Admin > CMDB:
- Configuration Item Types (CI Types) - Categorize your CIs under specific CI Types.
- Relationship Types - Configure the nature of relationships set between different CIs.
- Impact - Configure the level of impact that can be caused by an CI on business processes.
- Import - Imports CIs into the application from CSV files.
To view your CIs, go to the CMDB tab. On the CMDB page, the left navigation pane displays the business views and the hierarchy of all available CI types. The canvas in the middle displays the available business views or the CIs under the selected CI type.
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