session i will be covering the very basic concepts about cmdb okay it will uh most probably it will be the uh you know the theoretical concepts okay i'll have i'm sharing a deck here in front of you we will be covering about the main uh topics and the main concepts related to cmdb okay and then from the next session we will be moving to the instance and uh doing some technical uh things there okay why i covered this in the very first session because this is very much required it does not make any sense to just jump onto the technical stuff without having the understanding of what cmdb is or what service or cmdb is and you know some key uh concepts right so that's why we have this uh very first session which is more of a theoretical portion all right uh so if anyone has any questions any doubts uh please stop me in between and you can ask okay that's not at all a problem okay so talking about servicenow configuration management so you understand right this is a cmdb right so when i see him say cmdb it's configuration management database okay and the process right so cmdb is actually the database right but the whole process which is called as cm or configuration management right so i'll be so what i'm what uh what will be our learning objectives today with respect to this presentation will be uh define configuration management like what actually is configuration management okay then benefits of configuration management explain key terms and concepts key terms as in you know what is a ci okay configuration item okay what is an asset what is the life cycle of of a cmdb right so all these are very important concepts where people have most of the confusion so okay so that's all so this is a basically ice breaking session right where we'll be talking about some big and the most common concepts okay so talking about the very first thing about configuration management uh so i i would be going uh so i see a lot of people so i will not be asking individually so what understanding you have with relation to configuration management okay so i assume that everyone is having zero understanding about configuration management process and so when i say configuration management i am definitely talking about the servicenow configuration management right because this is a standard process right it is nothing uh you know so when i say it's a standard uh process configuration management is also implemented under on other tools uh right so but here we are only talking about with respect to service now every each and everything which we talk about here we are talking in terms of service now only right so what is the configuration management okay so when i say configuration management i am talking in terms of the process right configuration management is the process of establishing and maintaining the reliable information on managed ic services applications and infrastructure components throughout their life cycle okay so this is the very first uh beginning uh term okay so here are two three main points which you need to uh in understand right so first thing is is the process of establishing and maintaining reliable information okay so this is in highlighted and bold why because we need to understand what does this mean okay so configuration management is not only about establishing or populating the cmdb also as much as the population and establishment of the database is important maintaining that information maintaining that information is equally important right so that is what we are highlighting here establishing and maintaining reliable information okay on managed id services applications and infrastructure components throughout their lifecycle okay so here we're talking about three concepts uh three uh things id services applications and infrastructure right so when i say services we are talking about business services right applications and infrastructure components okay so now infrastructure is a much wider thing to understand so when i say infrastructure components i i may be talking about a server now again in the server i may be talking about a windows server linux server unix server aix server right i might be talking about a network device right network device such as switches routers right and then i will maybe talking about a database or a database server right so these are all our infrastructure components okay so configuration management does not only uh you know focus on the infrastructure components but their applications installed on those components and the business of id services which are uh which you know the business supporting this is one thing the other thing is the configuration management process focuses on the okay so now here are again three important terms which are going to come focuses on the creation maintenance and use of configuration items also known as ci's their attributes and relationships okay so whatever i'm talking about he talking about here right so many of you might not take it seriously because you think you know it's a theoretical concept and we'll just go to the practical things right but uh trust me when i say this is really important okay uh because this is the exact uh place where you know all of your doubts and will be cleared right with respect to the configuration management service now configuration management okay so please understand what i'm trying to explain if you're not getting anything please let me know so the second bullet point says configuration management process focuses on the creation maintenance and use okay so here are three terms which we are using first is the creation okay as i said populating the cmdb okay so the single source of truth for populating the cmdb in service now is discovery okay there are other data sources as well apart from discovery but discovery is the most widely used and it's a servicenow product itself right so when i say creation i am talking about creation of populating uh ci's into the database okay so one thing is it's about creation of the ci's second thing which i said in the above point as well maintenance right it's not that you created a ci today okay uh and you know you're not updating that cci right so in a span of one or more one month or three months there are certain attributes which got changed in the real environment but it's still showing us the old attributes on the service now okay so that acts that information which is present on the service now it's not reliable at all if we are not maintaining and updating those that information right and third point what we are saying is and use of cis okay definitely why we are populating the ci's and why we are maintaining the sales definitely to serve a purpose okay that means to use those cs somewhere okay and somehow that how we are using that particular cis in our different processes that i will be covering later okay now there are i think these three terms are clear creation maintenance and use of cis right now if it's move on and read and use of configuration items comma their attributes and relationships again i like to focus here what i'm trying to say is we are not only creating and maintaining ci's but we are also creating and maintaining their attributes and their relationships with other ci's okay i'll just move on to the instance for a minute to show you what i'm trying to say give me one second not uh are you guys able to see the instance or just still the representation is visible yeah yeah what give me one second i'm just sharing the instances but okay now i think you will be able to see the uh see the instance yes yeah so yeah so whatever points we've covered in the first slide i just want to show you what i mean to say okay so one thing is about populating the data that is the creation of ci's right so i so i went to the servers okay so server is a table okay in the cmdb itself and it has 91 records so that means it has 91 servers in my same server table right so these servers must have been populated somehow whether they have been power you know they have been populated using discovery or some data the other data source or discovery source right so one thing is populating these records right now second thing what i'm talking about here is creating the ci's and their attributes so when i say attributes so if you open any one of the server okay in in the form layout so this is what is the list layout and what i'm opening right now this is the form layout right so i have opened uh the form of a windows server whose name is this okay now all of these attributes which you see in the form these are the attributes of this particular windows server right so all so what i'm saying is we're not only populating the ci's okay in the table but we are also populating their attributes okay so if you see here some of the attributes have been populated like the name so name is an attribute serial number okay and what else we have we have operating system right so these three uh attributes are there let me just open any other server which has more attributes [Music] yeah so if you see this one has comparatively more attributes populated so it has name it has the asset tag attribute manufacturer okay a set company model id and all these attributes ram cpu speed cpu count okay so all these attributes are being populated here okay so when i talk about configuration management we definitely intend to create this this particular ci that is so this one is a unix server right but also uh we populate these attributes okay whether these are coming from discovery or some other data source that is different thing okay but when i talk about the configuration management process in general i'm talking about that we are also populating these attributes with relation to this particular server okay now two things are clear one is creation of ci's and their attributes now second thing is uh as i just shown you attributes and their relationships as well okay so what i mean when i say relationships so if if you go down in the form you see some related items under this related items uh partition you see some relationships being created here right so these are nothing but these are relationships with respect to this particular ci okay now relationships could be in many forms right where so suppose this unix server is uh hosting uh any website right or this unix server is the host for a database like we can see here right so bond trade ny bond trade uk these are two databases which are hosted on this particular server right so these are nothing but these are relationships which are created so as part of configuration management process i am also talking about creating the ci its attributes and the relationships very well okay so this is what i'm trying to say here now these three points are clear now uh the last and the last point hello yeah who's this yeah around amir here just want to know aamir okay uh i will just want to know one more like if you are doing manually uh adding the ci here basically using the import set then what about the relationship then we have to create manually or what like see see i mean one thing is i so i or you know service now will never recommend you to manually load the ci's into the database one thing okay still if you are loading ci's manually or through a import set okay now your question is whether we should add relationships manually so the clear answer to that is you can definitely add a relationship manually okay how we can add that that i will be showing you in the later sessions we have a topic where i'll be talking it you know showing you how we can add manual relationships to a ci okay but it is not a best practice that's what i'm trying to say here okay okay if that ci is coming from discovery relationships will automatically come no doubt in that right and if you are creating the cm manually then yes if you require the relationships then you will have to create the relationships manually but what if the data is a line large amount like in 10k or 20k no so you're saying you want to import a large data set yes like 10k data want to import uh in a ci table so what will happen there nothing will happen you you can you can you can import as much data as you want okay so there are some system properties which you need to change okay but that is that is not recommended so it's sort of standard practice to do because we are playing with the system properties sure okay but but to your question whether we can add manual relationships or not so the answer is if you are not doing discovery and you you're creating manual ci's then yes you will have to add relationships manually okay or you can yeah or you can load relationships as well through import set okay so these relationships are present in cmdb underscore cia underscore rel table okay that is a table name so you can import the data there you need only three things to create a relationship one is the parent second is the child and third is a type okay if you have these three attributes if you have these three information you can create relationships okay i don't want to go into detail in this first session about this but definitely we'll be covering all these points later on yep thanks okay yeah so no not a problem uh moving ahead uh so as i was saying it's also creating relationships okay so when i talk about servicenow configuration management process it's about creating and maintaining a ci its attributes and relationships okay so this is why i came to the instance to show you what exactly it looks like and when i say relationships what i mean and how does those relationships look how does a ci form look how does a table in the cmdb look okay so this is nothing but this is a table in the cmdb right so my purpose was only that also parallely we have practically seen all the points two bullet points which i covered in the slide right so that was uh my intention and i'll just be going back to the presentation again okay so moving on to the next slide i have i hope this these all points are clear right moving on to the next slide there are some more bullet points which we need to cover okay so it says configuration management process is focused on establishing a complete configuration management database and process integration with other idl processes to help realize custom configuration management objectives okay what does it mean i'll tell you later on but what they're saying here is uh as i said so in in the previous slide i told you right uh there was a term and use off right so i told you uh what does this use means right so when we say use so we are talking about the integration between the configuration management process and other itl processes like incident change problem and so on right so there is a very well integration hap you know present in the instance between your configuration management process and your other itil processes okay how does that integration work i will be talking about later in the slides okay but for now just understand that we have a very well integra good integration between the cmdb that is our configuration management uh mod pro process and servicenow and other itl processes okay now second point says what it says is it is important to note that configuration management is not asset management so this is a very short and an important point which you need to take care of okay so you guys must have heard about asset management as well or amdb asset management database right so configuration management and asset management both are different processes okay do not confuse them as a single process or as a single thing in service now they both are totally different okay how they differ with from each other i have a very good explanation about that in the later on slides i will be talking about there okay now the third bullet point says is this will enable the cmdb to capture end-to-end information about configuration items and their relationships however the amount and quality of information maintained within it is expected to continue if to evolve over time okay so this is not a very important point but but what it means is since we are keep on maintaining these ci's and their relationships and the attributes right we have con so this is a continuous process which keeps on happening right so we are maintaining this uh ci information from time to time right so it is expected that the amount and quality of information will evolve over time right so that is that is a a very understood understandable thing right that is very uh simple thing to understand that if you will uh so for example so if if you keep on practicing anything right so you improve in that thing right similarly we have this concept here since we uh you know update our ci's periodically from time to time uh the information and quality of information and the amount of information evolves over time right it it is expected that it will become much better over time right any questions still here or we're good to move forward anyone has any questions please go ahead and ask no question now all right great so i'm moving on to the next slide now that is huh so as i told you i will be talking about the integration of cmdb with other right l processes so this slide explains that okay so we have taken up two examples here one is the integration with incident management process other one is with the service catalog management process okay so i guess you guys must be knowing what is incident management and service manage catalog management right so keeping that in mind i'm going to continue now so what is the integration between these two uh mean right so let's take an example here which uh it's given so configuration management assists incident management by how how does it assist is providing the service desk with immediate information on the ci ci's affected and more timely resolution of false by understanding what ci's have been affected and changed okay so if you look at the incident management form or the incident form on the instance i'll be showing you in a while okay so there is a field called ci right so suppose if uh any incident is uh generated on a particular ci right we can directly link or attach that ci to the incident record okay now what will happen from that is or how does it help is the service desk guys right who are going to assist on that who are going to work on that incident we will have immediate information of the ci right like uh so i'll be telling you that on the instance okay so when you have the information of the ci all all of the information you know it's all it's all of its attributes the name of the cia the the asset name of the cia the asset name right or the location also you we might be having for that ci right we will be having its ram cpu and all those things right we also have the relationships from that cr okay so this all of the information will be available to that guy immediately right since that ci record is attached or it referenced in the incident okay so that is what it's going to do is it's going to help in more timely resolution of false okay and enough so it's definitely going to reduce the resolution time of the incident okay one thing one thing is this right so here with this example i told you how the cmdb could be helpful in other itl processes like incident management right now if i take an another example of a service catalog management right so service catalog you guys might be knowing right so for example with service catalog management business services and the cmdb can also be managed by the service catalog team and exposed to end users who can then request items from them okay so what this is saying is we can have a service catalog item where the users who need access to a particular business service okay can directly go to the service catalog go to that particular item select the particular business service or the ci to which they need access okay and submit the request right so the people who are going to give the required access will have the immediate information on the business service or the ci on which the user is asking uh the access for yeah so i i hope it's it's clear to you but i'm just moving on to the instance for this incident management example to show you what we mean okay so you understand in much in a much better way right okay so what we mean is the incident management example which we're talking about i'll just open the incident form first i'll open an incident for you open let's open this one i am not able to open this [Music] okay so i hope you can see the incident form now suppose this incident was uh generated okay now if you see a field on this form which is called as configuration item right this particular field i'm talking about here the ci field the configuration item frame right we see a configuration item populated in this particular field okay so this is a reference field first of all you need to understand that this is a reference field and it refers to our cmdb underscore ci table right so now a incident has been generated on this particular configuration item right so suppose uh it is assigned to me okay and i am the service test guy and it's a sign to me and i have to look into the and troubleshoot and resolve this incident right suppose this incident says that for example in the description it says this server is down from yesterday for example right so what i can do is i know the problem so now i know the issue right so if i am working on the incident what i'm going to do is first of all i'm just directly going i have direct access to this particular ci now this is what i was telling you about the use of cmdb in other itr processes since this is linked here i can directly open the ci and go to the ci okay now the issue which they said is the server is down okay so i look at the so i have all of the information with you know respect to this particular windows server okay so what all the information i have as of now so i see that it's a windows server also i see it's a windows 2003 operating system which is a very old one okay so one thing is uh since it's an old operating system the support for the server has has been stopped okay this is what my analysis could be right second i can look at the ram okay so the ram is only 2gb which is very less right cpu count is also one right so what i can understand at least from a superficial level with respect to this particular server is that the ram is also very less okay and it's on low so on the windows it's a windows 2003 operating system which is very old one and might be the support has been stopped okay now also what i have is i have these relation items okay so i see that uh this is the network gear okay so there is a gateway right which uh it's linked to right i have the software package relationships as well here right so for example now i so now till now in one minute i have narrowed down the possibilities of 100 you know 100 possible causes to only maybe two or three right that these two or three could be the issues behind this server going down right in a minute i am able to narrow it down from hundreds of reasons through which a server goes down to only two or three right this is how is going to help in timely resolution of the incident right so this is one of the example which i'm trying to explain you here and this is what we mean when we say cmdb is highly integrated with other iti processes and we just saw it for our incident management process yeah i hope this makes sense to you and you're getting right if you have any questions you can please go ahead and ask [Music] okay and i i guess that's a no so i will be just moving back to the slide okay so this we have covered now moving on to the next slide key definitions okay so we talked about the still now what we talked about was we talked about configuration management as a process right and it's uh concepts with respect to a process right now what i'm trying to explain you here is some key terms individual terms like ci what is a ci okay a configuration item also known as a ci is a service asset that needs to be managed in order to deliver a service the scope of what constitutes a ci varies by organizations and environments okay so this is very theoretical uh you know language so let me tell you in my language so a ci is okay as we have understood could is a service in an application or it's an infrastructure component okay which an organization holds and manages to deliver a particular service right so that is what is a ci to us for example a server you know a server is a ci a network device like a switch or a router a gateway right access point so these all are cis okay applications apache tomcat right websphere right databases for example oracle db2 ms sql right so all these are databases these are again cis so this is what is here so now it can be asset also sorry like the ci can be an asset also uh yeah so who's this sorry hi this is akshay okay so akshay i'll be answering your question in one minute when i move on to the next slide because that is a very important thing the difference between a ci and an asset okay just give me uh five more minutes and i'll be talking about that okay so this is what is a ci okay now cmdb cmdb we have already covered but i am just going to read it the configuration management database is the key component of the configuration management process so as i said you don't need to confuse cmdb with cm right cm is a process configuration management is a process but configuration management database is a key component of this process basically it's a database where the configuration information of assets or configuration items is stored right now moving on to the next definitions uh baseline and operational data okay so these so base what is the baseline is a baseline is a point in time configuration of one or more ci's that has been formally reviewed and agreed changes from the configuration baseline should only be implemented through formal chain procedures okay so i will be telling you and showing you how to create a baseline on the instance okay but for now uh a baseline is actually so you know in your in your in your phones or in your laptop you take screenshots right and that screenshot is a capture of at that particular time of your screen right similarly a baseline is a capture of your configuration management database at that particular point of time when you have created a baseline okay and when do you create that suppose uh you know in my scope uh they i had to discover 100 windows servers right so i have discovered those 100 windows servers now they have been reviewed and they have been accepted formally okay now i will be creating a baseline so that all those hundred ci's are captured as part of that baseline okay now from there on if any change is going to happen in the in those 100 servers or in windows server table that will be captured and we can keep a track of that moving forward okay so that is what is a baseline you might not get it as of now but uh when i'll be showing this you on the instance then you will be get definitely getting this sorry you have uploaded the [Music] whether to update an existing record or to create a new record okay for that there is a process in place that is called as identifiers or ci identifiers okay so ci identifiers has some unique attributes okay so based on those unique attributes it's going to decide whether it has to create new records or it has to update the existing ones for example one of our identifier for windows server is name and serial number right so whenever so suppose there are 100 ccs already now you are uploading 100 more right so what it's going to do is it's going to check for a combination of the name and the serial number right okay so out of those hundred it's a suppose only one world was there which was already existing in the right so its name was a babies unable to hear sorry can you hear me i think i lost the audio i'm audible now yes yeah yeah so uh i was asking if that clears your question uh yeah fine all right and don't worry we'll be talking about all these things identifiers and all these things in detail in our coming sessions we have a lot uh to cover okay we have all these topics in place in our uh coming sessions in detail okay so now yeah so now i'm coming to a very important point and most probably this is one of the important points of the slide that is delineating between asset and configuration management okay so someone asked me what is the difference between asset and a ci that also is going to clear here okay if anyone has any questions please let me know then uh you know i'll i can clear those things to you so here we're talking about the difference between asset and configuration management so one thing which i have already cleared you is asset and configuration management are two different concepts two different processes okay configuration item okay in id in itl terminology are components of an infrastructure that currently are or soon will be under configuration management see as maybe a single module such as a monitor or a tape drive or more complex items such as complete systems okay asset now what is asset management assets management spans the entire life cycle of an iit asset for any hardware asset or software asset focusing on tracking for any financial regulatory or concept contractual purposes okay so these last three terms are very important actually asset management main focus area is on the financial regulatory and contractual purposes okay whereas configuration management spans the operational life cycle of the assets in the infrastructure and focuses on operational information including status and attributes okay uh this you know this terminology might confuse you that's why i have a very good example here very good uh diagrammatic explanation of difference between an asset and a ci right or configuration management or an asset management okay so if you see look at this particular diagram let me just pull up a pen okay so this is our asset life cycle when does the asset life cycle start okay so it starts from here as soon as you request a particular asset right the asset lifecycle is going to start as soon as we request an asset okay the asset lifecycle is started for example so when i talk about asset a server right uh so you know okay you know organizations will request for the server right after the request is so there are some vendors already with the with organizations you know which help in the procurement and which you know deals with the assets right they they have a deal and they provide the assets to the organization right so as soon as this asset is requested our asset life cycle is started okay suppose we requested a server so till now that server is an asset to us right after the request is created it is procured okay so procured means it has come to us right maybe in our warehouse or in our store or wherever we keep it right now once we have it we have procured that particular asset or the server we will be deploying it getting it ready to get it deployed so when i say deploy you know you are installing some organization specific rules firewalls and if you want to host something on that so you are hosting that particular thing on the server right so that what comes under deployment right so till now also it's under the asset life cycle now as soon as this particular server gets deployed okay you see this in yellow asset becomes a ci okay as soon as the particular asset is deployed in the operational environment okay so operational environment means uh you know i procured the server i deployed the things on that server now i have connected it to the network right and it's currently operational from that particular point that asset becomes a ci okay and also our cmdb life cycle starts from there okay so if you look here our s cmdb life cycle starts right when does an asset becomes a ca as soon as that particular asset comes in the operational environment okay or as soon as that particular asset is operational and live at that particular time the asset becomes a ci and cmdb life cycle starts right now it's operating it's currently in the environment now maybe we after some years we might need retire it or deep dispose it or decommission it for some various reasons okay so as soon as it is retired or disposed again in that ci becomes an asset and now this continues okay so this is the very yeah so as soon as uh asset is coming into the operational environment it becomes a ci right a ci might not become an id asset right also an id asset might not become a ci right so this is a very thin line between an asset and a ci okay the thin line is that particular asset as soon as it is deployed and it comes into the operational environment right when i say comes into a operational environment i mean it is supporting the business now okay then it becomes an asset okay so is it making sense to you guys dude are you getting this or uh you have any questions please go ahead and ask because this is a real really important concept sorry i didn't get you someone said something yeah it's clear okay but what about others can you please respond [Music] yeah that's yeah yeah exactly i wanted to be interactive but anyways this was the first class from next classes it i will make sure that the sessions are interactive okay so this was the whole concept of the asset and the configuration management so whenever we talk about an asset it's it comes under asset management process when we talk about of when it come becomes a ci it comes under the configuration management process okay so i think we're pretty much done with this particular slides so any questions from the whole session please ask or or anything you want to ask anything around one question like uh what you will be covering like this is like can you do you have any content or what you will be covering in currency yeah yeah management we do have a proper yeah we do have a proper content okay mauseen can share that with you you just let him know okay so how many classes in uh cmdb particularly in cmdb so see cmdb is comparatively a small uh session to cover like maybe three four sessions we can cover it but discovery is much uh bigger okay because there are some topics which are common in both okay so i will be covering them only once so in how many classes in discovery rough idea so if you talk about discovery so i think we'll be able to complete that in uh 10 or 10 um 10 to 12 uh sessions cmdb and discovery okay so uh this uh these classes are specific for uh only uh like uh discovery and cmdb unit yeah so for now i will be taking up cmdb and discovery only okay so uh if you want uh something else apart from this then definitely we can continue after this is being completed okay so uh discovery uh level up the discovery like uh pattern and uh sensor and probe so yeah yeah so all the all the detailed topics which we are going to cover you can find that mozine can help share the link with you okay you can just go through that and all those things will be covered so it will be covering all the things starting from the very basic then going into some technical uh stuff details as well so so in the this class can uh we will do also like uh cloud discovery no cloud discovery is totally different oh okay so i'll just stop my screen now and um yeah so let me know if anyone has any questions so we can end the session for today so hi rahul this is uh actually i was uh i had to go in between but i just came back so i didn't get the chance to begin the complete but yeah i was i mean thank you for the session so i have a couple of questions maybe i'll reach out to you but just a quick one so i'm working on some assignments where i need to populate uh discovery gives us a full qualification domain name so in some of the servers it is not operating so you like this session or the cmdp course will go into that depth of you know popular understanding why it is not coming up or there is a what is the way to think about those that is a very specific issue are they okay you can just check the discovery properties and you will be able to find the solution for that but uh to answer your question we will not be going into these many specific details because there are thousands of errors and you know things which can happen while implementing right so this level of depth we will not be going but yes we will be covering each and everything which is required to go for a discovery implementation okay so you understand what i mean right so while implementing discovery there are thousands of challenges which can come right there could be thousands of errors so we cannot cover all those right okay also for this uh for this issue which you're talking about the fqdn right fully qualified domain name just check the discovery properties and you will be able to find the solution for this yeah actually i checked those properties so okay yeah all right then uh i should be ending the session now yeah thank you guys for joining and i hope to see you in the next session as well bye-bye take care okay thank you you