Maximizing IT asset management with CMDB: A comprehensive look at the Virima-Ivanti partnership
Table of Contents
- CMDB and IT asset management: What are they and how are they related?
- The Role of CMDB in IT Asset Management
- Implementing a CMDB for IT asset management: How Virima and Ivanti partnership helps
- An augmented Ivanti CMDB: A solid foundation of IT asset management
Managing IT assets efficiently is crucial for organizations, yet many struggle with optimizing their asset inventory, leading to underutilization, unnecessary procurement, issues with regulatory compliance, and more. These challenges extend to managing vulnerabilities, software licenses, contract compliance, and affecting operations. Implementing a Configuration Management Database (CMDB) offers a solution to these pervasive IT asset management issues.
This blog will delve into how CMDB plays a pivotal role in IT asset management and how the Virima and Ivanti partnership augments Ivanti CMDB for that. But let’s start with a primer on CMDB and its relation to IT asset management.
CMDB and IT asset management: What are they and how are they related?
A CMDB is a centralized repository that catalogs information on all configuration items (CIs) within an organization, including both physical and virtual devices such as hardware, software, operating systems, servers, and network infrastructure. This database not only details the attributes of each CI but also maps the intricate relationships between them. This facilitates a comprehensive view of the enterprise’s IT environment.
What does a CMDB do?
CMDB serves as the cornerstone for various IT service management practices by leveraging detailed insights into CIs’ interrelationships and their impact on service delivery. For instance, in incident management, a CMDB enables IT teams to swiftly identify and understand how specific CIs, like servers or databases, contribute to issues affecting critical business applications. This knowledge is crucial for quick resolution and minimizing downtime.
What is IT asset management?
On the other side, IT asset management involves the holistic management of IT assets throughout their lifecycle, from procurement to disposal, guided by best practices such as those outlined in ITIL 4. It encompasses strategic elements like budgeting, cost optimization, and risk management, while also addressing operational needs such as asset classification, location tracking, and secure disposal. IT asset management aims to maximize asset value and ensure financial and inventory data accuracy.
The relationship between CMDB and IT asset management
The intersection of CMDB and IT asset management lies in the use of CMDB data to enrich IT asset management processes. Information stored in the CMDB about CIs can form the foundation of an asset register, a critical component in IT asset management that records detailed financial, contractual, and inventory data of IT assets.
This alignment allows for more accurate classification and management of assets based on type, function, ownership, and usage, highlighting underutilized resources and supporting better decision-making. By integrating CMDB with IT asset management practices, organizations can achieve a more efficient, informed approach to managing IT assets, resulting in improved operational performance and cost-effectiveness.
With that being said, let’s have a detailed look at the role CMDB plays in IT asset management.
Read, The difference between configuration management and IT asset management
The Role of CMDB in IT Asset Management
Improved visibility and control over IT assets
The integration of a CMDB into IT asset management practices offers a comprehensive catalog of configuration items (CIs) that facilitates informed decision-making regarding asset allocation, optimization, and risk management.
Key to its effectiveness, a CMDB ensures the accuracy and currency of IT asset information through automated asset discovery tools. This capability ensures the essential attributes of assets such as configuration, relationships, and their physical and logical locations within the organization remain current. Such granularity of data becomes crucial for large enterprises seeking to enhance visibility across dispersed IT assets.
Furthermore, a CMDB plays a key role in monitoring asset utilization, tracking license expiry dates, and maintaining compliance with licensing agreements. This comprehensive oversight enables IT asset managers to pinpoint underutilized resources, streamline asset distribution, and curtail superfluous expenditures.
Streamlined IT asset management processes
A streamlined IT asset management process means ensuring that IT assets are utilized effectively throughout their lifecycle, from acquisition to maintenance to disposal, thus minimizing waste and optimizing resources.
Central to this streamlining of ITAM processes is the Configuration Management Database (CMDB). It provides a comprehensive and accurate inventory of all IT assets within an organization. But beyond all these, a CMDB helps you remove assumptions such as the availability of assets. For example, it addresses questions that IT teams always juggle with such as “I believe we have this asset, so where is it?” or “Where did this asset come from?”. This visibility allows you to manage assets and prioritize tasks based on the discovery of actual assets in use. Here, a robust discovery process is key, as it reveals the true state of the IT environment, rather than relying on outdated or inaccurate records.
By integrating with an IT asset management system, the CMDB serves as a foundational element that supports checks and balances within ITAM. This ensures that asset records are not only accurate but also reflective of the current state of IT infrastructure.
Enhanced decision-making and risk management
One of the most crucial parts of IT asset management is to make informed decisions about resource allocation. For instance, when planning to deploy a new software application, the IT team needs to identify underutilized servers or hardware so that it can be repurposed or upgraded to support the new application, rather than purchasing new equipment.
Similarly, in the case of risk assessment, IT teams need to track software versions and patch levels of all assets. It’ll enable them to identify outdated or unpatched software that may expose the organization to security risks.
In both informed decision-making and risk management cases, CMDB helps organizations with accurate and reliable data.
Implementing a CMDB for IT asset management: How Virima and Ivanti partnership helps
There are two primary ways the Virima-Ivanti partnership augments IT Asset Management processes for Ivanti customers.
Virima builds a trustworthy Ivanti CMDB for IT Asset Management
Virima powers Ivanti Neurons for Service Mapping, offering a comprehensive solution for discovering, categorizing, and mapping the relationships of IT assets across both on-premise and cloud-based data centers. It meticulously identifies a broad spectrum of IT assets, from hardware such as servers and networking equipment to software applications and virtual resources. Each asset is detailed with crucial information like manufacturer, model, and configuration specifics, emphasizing the interconnections between assets.
As organizations evolve, adding or replacing hardware and software, Virima’s dynamic discovery capabilities automatically detect these changes, ensuring the Ivanti CMDB remains current. This includes updates to asset configurations and the intricate web of relationships among them, reflecting the live operational environment accurately. This seamless integration ensures that the CMDB serves as a trustworthy foundation for IT asset management, enabling precise asset tracking, compliance, and optimization in an ever-changing IT landscape.
Virima augments Ivanti’s ITAM capabilities
Virima’s integration with Ivanti via Neurons for Service Mapping significantly boosts Ivanti’s capabilities in data center and cloud IT Asset Management (ITAM), ensuring a comprehensive approach to tracking and managing IT assets throughout their entire lifecycle. This is particularly made possible by Virima’s broad discovery and mapping capabilities and deep no-code integration into the Ivanti platform. This integration augments Ivanti’s edge discovery capabilities to ensure that every IT asset is not just discovered but also meticulously tracked. This includes detailed records of each asset’s configurations, relationships, and status within the IT environment. By providing a granular level of detail, Virima enriches Ivanti’s ITAM solution, enabling organizations to achieve a deeper understanding of their asset inventory.
With this enhanced tracking and management of assets, Ivanti customers optimize IT asset usage and ensure they are not over-provisioning or underutilizing resources. Moreover, the enhanced visibility into asset configurations and relationships helps in identifying and mitigating risks more effectively, ensuring a robust security posture.
Furthermore, maintaining compliance with relevant standards and regulations becomes more manageable with the Virima-Ivanti integration. The comprehensive data provided on each asset, including its lifecycle stage, usage, and compliance status, supports adherence to regulatory requirements, reducing the risk of non-compliance penalties.
An augmented Ivanti CMDB: A solid foundation of IT asset management
So it’s clear how CMDB plays a crucial role in IT asset management by providing the required visibility and control over IT assets. And it’s Ivanti’s CMDB augmented by Virima’s advanced discovery and service mapping capabilities that transforms it into a robust foundation for enhancing IT asset management processes.
Book a demo to learn more about how the Virima-Ivanti integration can enhance your IT asset management processes.
