For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Market Overview: Client Management Suites

Evolving Computing Market Shifts Focus To Security And Virtualization

by Natalie Lambert, July 29, 2009

Desktop operations managers are watching their computing environment change. There are now more types of devices and more varieties of operating systems entering the enterprise than ever before. This is leading to an architectural shift, one that moves . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Inquiry Spotlight: CMDB And CMS, Q3 2009

by Glenn O'Donnell, July 16, 2009

As IT organizations recognize the high value of structured IT management initiatives, Forrester is receiving many questions related to the configuration management database (CMDB). Since January 2008, Forrester has fielded 172 client inquires on various . . .

For Vendor Strategy Professionals

Tech Horizons: ASG's metaCMDB, The Technology That Rocks

How To Optimize Your Path To A Configuration Management System

by Jean-Pierre Garbani, June 16, 2009

The challenging business climate is an opportunity for many enterprises to revisit how IT supports the need for improved business productivity. Better, more efficient IT is often required. This streamlining of IT demands better and more accurate IT management . . .

For Vendor Strategy Professionals

Inquiry Insight: IT Management Software

Sustained Activity In Spite Of The Economic Downturn

by Jean-Pierre Garbani, May 13, 2009

Forrester analyzed the IT management software (ITMS) inquiries received from vendors and end users in 2007 and 2008. Inquiries are a good indicator of the tactical issues faced by Forrester's clients and of the activity surrounding a given subject matter. . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

CMDB Manager — Job Profile And Description  (28 KB XLS)

by Galen Schreck, April 1, 2009

Position overview: The CMDB manager implements, configures, and runs the CMDB system throughout its life cycle.

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Role Overview: CMDB Manager

Take Charge Of Managing And Maintaining Your IT Configuration Items

by Evelyn Hubbert, July 9, 2008

The configuration management database (CMDB) is still a central theme for today's infrastructure and operations (I&O) professional. Organizations are making significant improvements in mastering CMDBs and implementing this as a central process discipline . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Problem Manager: A New IT Service Management Role

The Key To A Proactive IT Service Organization

by Evelyn Hubbert, March 28, 2008

In many IT organizations, the same problems keep occurring, but they never get fixed properly or identified as known errors. Even if you have fully automated IT management, you still need a person who can comprehend dependencies and has the ability to . . .

For Technology Product Management & Marketing Professionals

The Change And Configuration Management Software Market

Efficiency Through Controlling IT Assets And Managing Change

by Evelyn Hubbert, Natalie Lambert, June 12, 2007

The challenges IT organizations are facing today in maintaining a complex and dynamically changing IT infrastructure can no longer be supported by manual change control solutions. Tasks such as operating system updates, client refreshes, server updates . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Who Has Changed My Network?

The Discipline Of Network Change And Configuration Management

by Evelyn Hubbert, February 14, 2007

Network downtime results in a significant and immediate revenue loss in today's organizations. Large enterprises can fritter away a significant chunk of their annual revenues — tens or hundreds of millions of dollars each year. In Forrester's experience, . . .

IBM Ships Its CMDB With An Extra "C"

Collation Is Now Part Of Tivoli's Change/Configuration Management Database

by Peter O'Neill, Jean-Pierre Garbani, July 20, 2006

IBM has been a latecomer to application dependency discovery. After acquiring Collation, the work of turning the technology into a full-featured CMDB and integrating it with the Tivoli product suite was a daunting task. IBM today has overcome these challenges . . .

CMDB: Let's Get Physical

Process Improvement And Current Configuration Management Databases

by Jean-Pierre Garbani, June 19, 2006

The configuration management database (CMDB) is a key ingredient of service management — whether considered in its process incarnation (IT Infrastructure Library, ITIL) or in its technology and product implementation in business service management (BSM). . . .

Mercury Enhances The Technology Foundation Of Its Configuration Management Database

The Forrester Wave™ Vendor Summary, Q1 2006

by Jean-Pierre Garbani, Kim Le Quoc, February 27, 2006

Mercury was the first of the large vendors to acquire an application dependency mapping discovery technology when it acquired Appilog. This provided Mercury with an initial product that was more oriented toward systems management than to the support of . . .

Computer Associates Introduces Its New Configuration Management Database

The Forrester Wave™ Vendor Summary, Q1 2006

by Jean-Pierre Garbani, Kim Le Quoc, February 27, 2006

Computer Associates (CA) is a fairly new entrant into the configuration management database (CMDB) market, shipping its first customer CMDB in fall 2005. As a result, the vendor doesn't yet provide a CMDB solution that matches market standards. CA's CMDB . . .

nLayers Leads With The Most Effective Configuration Management Database

The Forrester Wave™ Vendor Summary, Q1 2006

by Jean-Pierre Garbani, Kim Le Quoc, February 27, 2006

nLayers offers a configuration management database (CMDB) that is very solid overall, with strong map export and information reconciliation features. The key element of nLayers is its passive discovery, which permits real-time updates. nLayers' InSight . . .

Cendura Offers The Most Detailed Configuration Management Database

The Forrester Wave™ Vendor Summary, Q1 2006

by Jean-Pierre Garbani, Kim Le Quoc, February 27, 2006

Cendura provides a configuration management database (CMDB) product, Cohesion, which is a good fit for data center buyers needing detailed detection of server and database dependencies. The product offers strong database discovery, database integration, . . .

BMC Software Provides An Integrated Yet Open Configuration Management Database

The Forrester Wave™ Vendor Summary, Q1 2006

by Jean-Pierre Garbani, February 27, 2006

BMC Software was an early promoter of business services management (BSM) and was one of the first large management software vendors to reach the market with an original application dependency mapping technology. BMC presents a very solid technology that . . .

Tideway Presents A Very Capable Configuration Management Database

The Forrester Wave™ Vendor Summary, Q1 2006

by Jean-Pierre Garbani, Kim Le Quoc, February 27, 2006

Tideway offers an overall strong configuration management database (CMDB) product with a good application dependency mapping technology. Foundation does have good information reconciliation and virtual environment discovery, although it lacks real-time . . .

Relicore Offers A Well-Honed Configuration Management Database

The Forrester Wave™ Vendor Summary, Q1 2006

by Jean-Pierre Garbani, Kim Le Quoc, February 27, 2006

Relicore was the first company to propose a viable application dependency discovery technology. Overall, its Clarity product provides a fairly strong configuration management database (CMDB) that has solid information reconciliation and database history . . .

Collation/IBM Starts Expanding Its Configuration Management Database

The Forrester Wave™ Vendor Summary, Q1 2006

by Jean-Pierre Garbani, Kim Le Quoc, February 27, 2006

IBM Tivoli took quite some time to warm up to application dependency mapping technology, but took a first step in early 2005 by introducing the Discovery Library. This project involved a group of independent vendors — nLayers, Collation, Relicore and . . .

Change And Configuration Management

The Next Battlefield On The Road To Organic IT

by Jean-Pierre Garbani, Thomas Mendel, Ph.D., November 8, 2004

Over the past 12 months, the perceived importance of enterprise infrastructure management technologies has increased steadily within Forrester's client base. The first wave of service-level management and business services management implementations is . . .