Limited visibility has tethered CIOs' success in both IT and business. However, using federated CMDB technology, CIOs can view the complete IT infrastructure and the entire lifecycle of a business service.
The Future of IT in a Flat World:
CMDBs, Automation, and the IT Value Chain
a white paperBy Jimmy Augustine
CIOs need to see farther, deeper, and more
clearly throughout IT's flat landscapeand standardization of information technologies, have also Overview generated economic benefits. But the gains of IT's global sprawl also aggravate the familiar problem of limited visibility, further The CMDB is the technological hub of business compounding IT's ongoing struggle to manage its domestic silos. service automation and the key to creating an IT value chain. The impact of operating in this shortsighted mode is significant. Experts predict that through 2012, just five percent of Items of Interest large enterprises will achieve operational and infrastructure management excellence. . Supply chain automation: a fitting model for IT While this is a sobering statistic, its realization is avoidable. . The central role of the CMDB, federation, and There is a way for IT to increase its operational success in the metadata in business service automation future, even as it delivers business value. For IT to become more . Demand-driven IT automation: the key to functional and strategic-and for business to become more managing unpredictability competitive-IT needs to change its perspective of what is possible. . The CMDB's ability to audit and automate the CIOs need to see farther, deeper, and more clearly throughout IT's cloud flat landscape, however far it stretches, even into the clouds.
. Automated IT as a basis for creating business This quest for complete visibility is not unique to IT. Domestic value supply chain managers have made remarkable progress in this area, frequently employing automation to reduce costs and increase efficiencies. If CIOs are to respond to their cost containment Globalization has flattened our world. In terms of imperative, they must follow in the footsteps of manufacturers competition and commerce, the playing field has never and adopt a supply chain management mentality. At the same been more level. The Web, workflow software, off- time, IT needs to deliver on the promise of Business Service shoring, and supply chaining have pushed business into Management (BSM): CIOs must create an IT value chain, a network of interdependent processes that provide value to both business a milieu of blurred boundaries. The old distinctions, and end-consumers. geographical and otherwise, that previously defined ways of doing business, are rapidly losing importance. The Need for Visibility
While an expanding marketplace has given innovators IT needs to change its perspective of what is possible. a chance to use their creativity to ratchet up profits, CIOs need to see farther, deeper, and more clearly the reality of doing business in a flat world comes with throughout IT's flat landscape, however far it stretches, significant restrictions. The most important of these is even into the clouds.also the most obvious: our sight is limited. The urge to explore is strong, but like our predecessors in the days before Columbus and Magellan, we're fenced in by a The vehicle for IT's future transformation is business service distant horizon and the intimidating nothingness that automation, which encompasses what is commonly referred to as lies beyond it. process or run book automation (RBA) and data center automation. 1Ideally, this approach would automate business services across Nowhere is this trend more evident than in the industrialization their life cycle, integrating people, processes, and technology of information technologies. The world of IT has become flatter throughout an enterprise. At the hub of this system is a federated with the rise of virtualization, service-oriented architectures configuration management database (CMDB), which would act as a (SOAs), and the dramatic growth in Internet popularity. These flexible data broker, providing accurate, comprehensive information developments, which have accelerated the commoditization for all of IT's automated activities and strategic decisions.
1The Future of IT in a Flat World: CMDBs, Automation, and the IT Value Chain
It is the CMDB-more specifically, a federated metadata repository- IT can gain valuable advantages by following the domestic supply that provides the complete visibility needed to alter IT's flat chain model. By automating the relationship between the supplier perspe... [download for more]
