Is Your Configuration Management Solution Built to Last?

How do you control your IT service assets? Current IT service trends point to a number of professionals in your space that have turned to ITIL-based configuration management systems as a means to track and control such assets. Yet still others find such an implementation to be both challenging and intimidating. The good news is that in order to ensure your configuration management solution is built to last, it does not have to be an elaborate or a costly commercial product. Your key focus in your role of service management should be to implement a solution that will sufficiently scale and deliver the desired features, as well as being future-proof.

The Benefits of Configuration Management

In your area of service management, it is important to implement a configuration management solution to not only protect your assets, but also to ensure your organization can realize a number of significant benefits. Such benefits include an improved ability to track any changes, allowing you to anticipate any impacts down the line; you can more easily and quickly handle incidents; you can improve the accuracy of incident resolution; with greater control over items within your environment, you can improve security; you can manage proactively; compliance with initiatives such as Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPPA is assured; and you have greater control over the software versions and licenses you have.

Benefits of Configuration Management at Risk

The reality for service management is that if you do not have a configuration management solution in place that you actively manage, the benefits promised in the solution will quickly disappear. IT service management relies on the data that is stored in the configuration management solution to make informed decisions. If that information or data is incorrect, inaccurate and incomplete, the decisions will be made on bad information and will therefore not keep the best interest of the company as a priority. The consequences are likely to be felt across the enterprise–something you are not likely to welcome.

Configuration Management Relies on Good Data

Don’t waste the power of your configuration management by ignoring the proper management of the solution. A key to quality service management is to put quality processes in place, especially where your configuration management solution is concerned. To accomplish this, be sure your data is valid. This is accomplished by making someone within the IT department accountable for the integrity of the data within your configuration management solution. You also must establish regular naming conventions and make it a priority to stick to them. By following these two key rules, you can eliminate significant headaches for yourself and your team.

Optimize the Configuration Management Solution

Once you have ensured that your configuration management solution operates only on valid and quality data, you are ready to realize the full benefit of this service management solution. You and your department are under intense pressure to produce the best results for your organization while protecting your IT assets–this is not something you can take lightly. As mentioned above, this is also something that does not have to be complicated. Follow the basic, but important, tips listed here and you will be well on your way to success.