Kinetic IT’s expertise is helping a global resources company mature its Configuration Management System and configuration management processes. This includes their implementation of ServiceNow Configuration Management Database (CMDB) and ServiceNow Discovery.
Problem
When originally deployed, the customer’s ServiceNow Discovery and CMDB solutions were not aligned to a clear set of business requirements and had no defined governance model. This meant there were no clear roles and responsibilities for configuration management, affecting the accuracy and trustworthiness of the configuration data in ServiceNow.
Solution
Kinetic IT consultants worked in conjunction with the customer to develop a two-phased governance project to define specific policies, processes, plans, and technical strategies to mature their ServiceNow Discovery and CMDB implementation.
Outcome
The customer can now realise its vision of a configuration management practice that is trusted, flexible, adaptive, and capable of supporting the delivery of business, application, and technical services.
PLANNED PHASES TO HELP THE CUSTOMER ALIGN WITH SERVICENOW’S COMMON SERVICE DATA MODEL FOR CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT.
CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT DELIVERABLES INCLUDING A TECHNICAL STRATEGY, OPERATIONAL READINESS, AND IMPLEMENTATION PLAN.
Customer Background
Our customer is a global resources company with operations in Australia’s northwest. Like any large resources company, the customer needs to have an accurate view of its technology infrastructure components and the requirements of individual applications, services, storage, networking, and connectivity elements. This visibility across an organisation’s IT infrastructure is a component of IT Operations Management.
A key element to this visibility is Configuration Management System (CMS) software. CMS software finds applications and devices across a network, logging each instance as a Configuration Item (CI) data which is then catalogued by a Common Services Data Model into a Configuration Management Database (CMDB).
The customer had deployed ServiceNow Discovery and CMDB software across a section of its corporate network, populating its CMDB with data supplied by ServiceNow Discovery and several other tools. Even though the implementation was faultless, it became apparent that the data could not be trusted.
The problem was that the implementation was not aligned to a clear set of business requirements. Processes defining roles and responsibilities around configuration management had not been set or aligned to processes or strategies, and the health of the CMDB was not managed to a defined standard.
Without trustworthy data, important processes like change control and management, as well as disaster recovery, could be at risk.
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The Challenges
- Complexity: As with any large organisation, a detailed discovery phase needs to be undertaken to fully understand business needs and to engage with key stakeholders.
- Measuring Success: Due to the unreliability of the existing CMDB data, determining future success would require the use of alternative metrics
- Limited Overview: There was no holistic view of the entire technology landscape across both the customer’s corporate and operational technology domains.
The Solution
Kinetic IT is an Elite ServiceNow partner, which led to an invitation from the customer to analyse its current state, determine issues, and develop policies and processes to mature its ServiceNow Discovery and CMDB.
The customer realised that it needed expertise in the establishment of governance around the product. They needed a configuration management practice that provided a clear understanding of its technology landscape, supported operational, tactical, and strategic decision making, and provided an environment where stakeholders were clear on their configuration responsibilities.
Kinetic IT ServiceNow consultants met with the customer to determine a configuration management vision and understand the business motivation to invest in one. Once understood, Kinetic IT led the customer journey, workshopping with the customer’s team, writing policy and process documents based on ITIL® and ServiceNow best practice, and the customer’s unique requirements. This was supported by facilitation of Configuration Item class design workshops which captured detailed requirements used to write a Configuration Management Plan aligned to ServiceNow’s Common Service Data Model. The Configuration Management Plan defined which types of Configuration Items and attributes should be tracked, and the data sources which would act as sources of truth for that data.
Two distinct phases were identified: Phase 1, which involved documenting the configuration management policy, process and plan based on Kinetic IT’s workshops, and Phase 2 which involved developing artefacts, including a configuration management technical strategy as well as an implementation plan and operational readiness plan for the implementation.
“The health of the CMDB can now be monitored and maintained to ensure issues are identified and remediated in a timely manner, and that the value derived is continually growing.”
— Daniel Spada, Principal Consultant, Platform & Automation Group, Kinetic IT
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The Outcome
As a ServiceNow Elite partner, Kinetic IT has journeyed with the customer to develop and implement processes and plans to help mature and maintain the health of its ServiceNow Discovery and CMDB.
With Phase 1 and 2 completed, the customer is now able to realise its vision of a configuration management practice that is trusted, flexible, adaptive and capable of supporting the delivery of business, application and technical services.
It is now possible for the customer to locate Configuration Items to a level of granularity that supports efficient management and maintenance, as well as assessing the impact of outages, degradations, and changes on Configuration Items.
- Technical Solutions: The customer has a technical solution and strategy designed to meet its desired CMDB target state.
- Measurability: Due to unreliable prior-state data, Kinetic IT has created surveys to track progress and validate ongoing value for the customer, stored in ServiceNow.
- Better Visibility: The customer can precisely locate Configuration Items for effective management and maintenance, and evaluate their impact during outages, degradations, and changes.
