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5
is analogous to the manufacturing product assembly docu-
ments that show the assemblies and subassemblies that
make up each product. Likewise, the technical service
catalog gives IT an understanding of the makeup of services
and enables IT to reuse services in different applications.
Both the business service catalog and the technical service
catalog are essential to effective service lifecycle manage-
ment as defined by the service. The business service catalog
communicates essential information to users. The technical
service catalog communicates essential information to the
IT staff and shows outsourcer contributions.
The Role of the Configuration Management
System and Configuration Management Database
The configuration management system (CMS), introduced in
ITIL V3, provides a strong foundation for the service catalog.
The CMS is an ecosystem that feeds, manages, analyzes,
and presents the information contained in the configuration
management database (CMDB), another fundamental
component of ITIL. Although the CMDB is depicted in the
ITIL books as merely a core component of the CMS, a well-
architected, federated CMDB implements much of the
functionality of the CMS.
The CMDB maintains data on all IT resources, including
infrastructure elements and services, as configuration
items (CIs). It provides access to detailed data on each CI
and maintains information about the relationships of the CIs
to each other. As such, the CMDB provides the informational
foundation for both the business service catalog and the
technical service catalog. By accessing the CMDB through
the CMS, you can extract a view of the services currently
available to customers. You can view the enterprise infra-
structure, including all services and their relationships
to the underlying enterprise infrastructure components.
Enabling Service-Oriented Architecture Applications
Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) applications are built
by combining services in a hierarchical fashion to provide
the required functionality. Included services can consume
other services and be sourced both internally and externally.
SOA permits the reuse of services in multiple applications.
Reuse reduces the cost of service development and enhances
business agility because it enables organizations to develop
needed applications faster.
Application developers who build SOA applications need to
know all the services that are available for inclusion in SOA
applications, as well as information about those services,
such as the following:
Strategic assessment of overall business goals
>
Service description, including the marketplace
>
and customers served
Service makeup (supporting infrastructure components
>
and services)
Figure 4. Sample Configuration Management Database (CMS)
Presentation Layer
Knowledge Processing Layer
Information Integration Layer
Data and Information
- Query and Analysis
- Forecasting and Planning
- Modeling
- Monitoring and Alerting
- Search, Browse
- Store, Retrieve, Update
- Publish, Subscribe
- Collaborate
- Service Definition
- Process Data and Information,
Schema Mapping
- Reconciliation, Synchronization
CMDB
Analytics
Capacity
Management
Performance and
Availability Management
Event
Management
Technical Configuration
(CI Viewer)
Topology Viewer
BSM Dashboards
(Incident, Problem, Change, Release, Service Impact)
Identity
Management
Service Request
Management
Service
Desk
Discovery
Asset
Management
Software
Configuration
Application
Federation
Definitive
Software Library
CMDB
CMDB
CMDB
CMDB
Integration Model
Schema, Metadata
Reconciliation
Service
Definitions
Service
Desk
