In September 2006 Lokomo Systems announced the release of an open source CMDB called OneCMDB.
This is a very good start, but I would point to several issues, at first glance:

• The model used seems to be developed in house, without any link to DMTF CIM : Why re-invent a model which already exists elsewhere ?
• The reconciliation of discovered data with existing data seems not existent.
• The security model seems inexistent (or I did not find it): no role based access.

I don't want to be too harsh, but one thing I discovered when I joined BMC is that a CMDB is more than just a persistence store for an object model. It's actually very complex, specifically the reconciliation and federation of various information sources. The CMDB is a virtually centralized repository for information residing in many, many different locations.
Another key ITIL recommendation for the CMDB, is that all modifications of the CMDB should be performed under change management control. Therefore, configuration management and change management are really tied at the hip.

I'll try to play with this open source CMDB and explain in a bit more details the need for reconciliation, and integration with change management in some upcoming posts.

Anyway, thanks to Lokomo for releasing their sources under GPL.

Technorati Tags: CMDB, opensource

Responses[1]

Posted by jc on 02 January 2007 15:28:23 PST #