Trust Your CMDB with Modern IT Asset Management (ITAM)

It's no secret that most IT organizations lack confidence in the accuracy of their Configuration Management Database (CMDB). Inaccurate control over technology asset inventory leads to a slew of issues, including security vulnerabilities resulting from exposed endpoint attack surfaces, the risk of failed audits and non-compliance, and wasteful capital expenditure when replacing unrecovered offboarded employee laptops.

While you may desire your CMDB to serve as the 'single source of truth' for technology assets, it often falls short. In fact, the accuracy of most CMDBs typically hovers around 60%.

Why is this the case?

In today's modern and dynamically changing technology landscape, complexity and constant change are formidable challenges, rendering the task of maintaining accurate CMDBs increasingly difficult.

CMDBs were introduced during an era characterized by client/server computing when on-premises data centers reigned supreme in the IT data center. This was prior to the advent of cloud virtualization; before the SaaS explosion and common challenge of paying for unused licenses; before the deployment of multiple technology management tools storing conflicting data on the same assets; before the ubiquity of employees carrying mobile phones, putting them at risk of phishing attacks; before cybersecurity became a top priority in the minds of every C-suite executive.

The CMDB remains at the core of the service management world, with its primary objective being to provide the information necessary to run ITSM processes more efficiently. However, it's crucial to recognize that configuration management is a separate discipline from IT asset management.

Configuration management and IT asset management are different

IT Asset Management (ITAM) oversees the entire lifecycle of an organization's technology assets. It involves maintaining an accurate inventory and monitoring changes, including tracking location, ownership, lifecycle state, security posture and proper disposal at the end of an asset's life. These technology assets encompass a wide range, including endpoints, SaaS and on-premises applications, cloud resources, networks, and more.

Many companies deal with substantial quantities of assets, ranging from thousands to tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands. This multitude of assets necessitates tracking numerous interdependencies within a Configuration Management Database (CMDB). While it's common for nearly all Configuration Items (CIs) in a CMDB to also be monitored in an ITAM tool, not all technology assets in an ITAM technology database (TDB) will be tracked in a CMDB.

For example, let’s take three typical assets: A network router, a desktop computer and a keyboard accessory.

• A network router is pivotal in an organization's network infrastructure, directing traffic, ensuring connectivity, and managing configurations. Alterations to its settings can impact network performance and security. Tracking its details, firmware updates, and changes in a CMDB is crucial for network stability and security.
• An employee laptop computer is a common end-user device, but changes to a single laptop typically don't broadly impact the organization's IT infrastructure. Thus, tracking every individual laptop in a CMDB may not be necessary, as they don't significantly influence IT configurations, dependencies, or network-wide changes.
• A keyboard typically lacks interdependencies, making it unlikely to be tracked in a CMDB.

However, all three categories of assets must be tracked by an IT asset management tool.

Running in-house projects to try to keep the CMDB data accurate

In the age of cloud computing, SaaS, and mobile technology, the IT environment has undergone significant transformations since the inception of the CMDB. Consequently, IT teams are compelled to undertake ongoing projects to adapt the CMDB, aligning it with their ever-evolving technology landscape. These projects often involve extended development cycles, lasting several months to a few years, building highly customized and often rigid solutions.

This approach essentially aims to convert a configuration management database into an asset technology database. But again, these are essentially two different databases with overlap that effectively support two different use cases.

Enter modern IT asset management (ITAM)

An important point to bear in mind is that a CMDB continues to be a vital database for running businesses, particularly concerning its role in supporting the service management domain. What's necessary is for the technology management domain to contribute to improving CMDB accuracy without necessitating lengthy development cycles. This is where Oomnitza's agentless IT asset management capability proves invaluable.

Legacy ITAM solutions concentrate on asset counting and tracking for inventory purposes, which alone is insufficient for significantly improving CMDB accuracy. In contrast, modern IT asset management offers comprehensive visibility into a company's complete technology asset portfolio. Modern ITAM equips organizations with the essential components for automating manual tasks within IT processes, ensuring the provision of accurate, real-time data concerning the status, performance, and security of the entire technology asset portfolio.

As a result, modern IT asset management replaces a substantial portion of manual efforts and tickets linked to routine IT processes with automation, all while enhancing a company's security posture and reducing overall costs.

The accurate and up-to-date data within an ITAM technology database can then be leveraged to enhance the precision of CMDB data. The outcome: IT can (finally) trust their CMDBs, improving services delivered to the business, without the need for lengthy and costly IT projects.

In fact, thanks to its agentless architecture and standardized workflows, a company can deploy Oomnitza's standard data hygiene workflows to enrich and update its CMDB in less than a week with automation in place to continuously maintain CMDB accuracy.

What's even more compelling is that, in a way, deploying modern ITAM essentially makes a company money when you consider the potential savings and return on investment. For example, one customer reduced their annual SaaS expenditure by 27% by identifying and eliminating unused licenses. Another customer achieved annual savings of over $300K by enhancing IT productivity through automation that eliminated manual tasks. Furthermore, they managed to reduce the risk of human error and the risk of costly rework by 70%.

So, if you're responsible for a CMDB, take a closer look at how Oomnitza's modern IT asset management can be seamlessly deployed to enhance CMDB accuracy, reduce security vulnerabilities, minimize audit and compliance risks, and, at the same time, contribute to cost reduction.

Schedule a demo of Oomnitza today.