The purpose of Configuration Management, which is aligned with the ITIL Practice Service Configuration Management, is to define and control IT service components as configuration items (CI), and to provide reliable information about services and infrastructure states.

Within SimpleOne, Configuration Management is responsible for ensuring that individual service components are identified, supplied, and controlled. All CIs such as IT services, components required for proper service delivery, and relationships between them are stored as configuration records in the Configuration Management Database (CMDB). The System Definition catalog provides tools and methods for full CMDB customization.

The SimpleOne Configuration Management solution allows to perform the following types of activities: 

  • Configuring CMDB structure by identifying CIs required to deliver IT services.
  • Customizing and extending the CMDB structure with classes and models.
  • Maintaining and providing accurate configuration information, including CI attributes and relationships.
  • Monitoring and controlling current states and conditions of IT services and other CIs.
  • Tracking CIs, their relationships, and states with the Service Model.

About CMDB

The CMDB collects and stores the following items as configuration records:

  • CMDB classes − groups of CIs based on their parameters.
  • CMDB models − composite templates of CI parameters.
  • Configuration Items − IT services and their components required for service delivery.

A CI class is a logical combination of configuration items into groups based on similar purposes and equipment characteristics. A class can have child classes. A class is an Extended Record Model (REM) that includes collections of attributes defined at the class level and derived from the class hierarchy. There are two types of attributes that can be set for classes: editable and non-editable. Editable attributes are set at the class level and can take individual values ​​for each class CI. Non-editable attributes are set at the level of the CI configuration model and do not change until the model itself changes.

A configuration model is a composite template of filled and non-editable attribute values ​​that are specific to certain CIs of the same class. The configuration model can be applied to various categories of CI, such as hardware and devices, software, and so on.

The picture below illustrates the CMDB structure. 


Refer to the following articles to learn more:

Configuration Management Data Base (CMDB)

A Configuration Management Database collects and stores all configuration records about the attributes and relationships of your CIs. It provides means to identify IT services and their various components as CIs and to determine them with the custom types. 


Extend CMDB with table inheritance

Classify your CMDB structure to make it meet your business needs. Use the System Definition features to create and add new inherited CMDB tables, to establish relationships between them and to determine class policies.


Extend CMDB with classes and models

Extend your CMDB structure with classes of CIs and equipment models specific to these classes. Add special attributes to classes and models to define up-to-date information about your assets and equipment.

CI relationships

Build your CMDB structure by setting up relationships among CIs. Special CMDB tools are designed to help administrators customize and establish CI relationships.