Now I'm not a complete idiot when it comes to technology, but I certainly have not earned 'geek' status yet (and after 30 years in IT probably never will).
I have been an ITIL Trainer and Consultant for about 4 years now, and like many other poor bastards have seen some of the wreckage on the savage journey to IT service management excellence.
By far, most of the carnage I've witnessed has more to do with people than processes or technology, but in this case I simply must blather on about a recent Gartner research paper titled, Expect Performance Management Databases in the Future.
That's right, PMDBs. The CMDB, CDB, CMS, SKMS, Service Catalog, et al already lay fertile ground for serious confusion and weird scenes inside the data center. If you talk to a real geek, you can get a killer dose of future shock.
So I thought, as a certifiable 'non-geek' I would rant on about what I've seen (and what I think I'm seeing), in the desperate hope of getting some validation as to what's really happening "out there".
ITIL Version 2 defined two principal data bases; the Capacity Data Base (CDB) in the Service Delivery book and the Configuration Management Data Base (CMDB) in the Service Support book. When I blogged on the IT Skeptic a couple years ago (see CMDB Kool-Aid can result in a Bad Trip... ) I was simply offering a view that there was more than one path to service excellence (and it didn't have to include an "ITIL-defined" CMDB.
As luck would have it, it seems that I just had my terminology wrong. I was really talking about a PMDB. Had I only known! In fact, it;s not just Gartner that leads me to see the light. Enterprise Management Associates also has published some papers describing a 'CMDB Evolution' as depicted below.
Look, I'm not the geek here. I understand that the vision for truly integrated ITSM management environment will take time (and money).
However, while you're waiting for nirvana, you might want to get something done (and numb some of the pain) along the way. Look at your stakeholders and services, establish a simple Catalog matrix and begin Cross Silo base lines as you proceed with process improvement cycles.
It will help get everyone on the same page and avoid some of the most challenging issues associated with your ITIL initiatives; People.
Understanding the inter-relationships between silos that make up end-to-end business services does not require a 'CMDB'. Ok, maybe a 'CDB', PMDB' or 'Real-Time CMDB'...
but what the hell do I know?