Method for providing assistance in making change decisions in a configurable managed environment

Abstract

A method is provided for assigning weights to CIs in a configurable managed system, wherein respective weights are derived from information contained in an associated CMDB. The information could include without limitation the relationships that a CI has with other CIs and the number of reads and writes that are made between the CI and other CIs. A Change Manager in the configurable system makes changes affecting CIs, wherein different types of changes require different levels of confidence in the integrity of data in the CMDB. Accordingly, the weights of respective CIs are used to provide a confidence level regarding the accuracy of CMDB data, pertinent to a proposed change. The confidence level is then used by the Change Manager in deciding whether or not to make the change. One embodiment comprises acquiring information from the CMDB pertaining to CIs that would be affected by a particular change, and processing the acquired information to compute a confidence level indicating the probability that the acquired information is correct. The particular change is then allowed only if the confidence level is no less than a pre-specified minimum value.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0001]1. Field of the Invention[0002]The invention disclosed and claimed herein generally pertains to a method for providing assistance in decision making in a configurable managed environment or system, that includes a configuration management database (CMDB) and configuration items (CI). More particularly, the invention pertains to a method of the above type for providing assistance in determining whether or not to make a change in the system that would affect one or more of the CIs. Even more particularly, the invention pertains to a method of the above type for computing a confidence level representing the probability that information provided by the CMDB is accurate. The Change Manager also gets the information on the impact of the proposed change.[0003]2. Description of the Related Art[0004]Configuration management is a critical process responsible for identifying, controlling and tracking all versions of hardware, software, documentation, and other ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0008]In association with a CMDB containing information that relates to configuration items (CIs) in a configurable managed system, wherein a change station is provided to make respective changes, a method is provided for determining whether to allow a particular change that would affect at least one of the CIs. The method comprises the steps of acquiring information

Problems solved by technology

Because the CMDB receives CI change data from different point products, it can happen that data received from the different point products, in regard to the same CIs, will be in conflict.

Moreover, delays of varying lengths may occur between actual changes of CI conditions, and the reporting of such changed conditions to the CMDB.

As a result, a typical CMDB that is being populated with data from multiple point product sources cannot be kept in synchronization with the actual real world condition of all CIs, since it is virtually impossible to keep CID synchronization up to date.

Some changes to the environment are trivial, while other changes can have serious consequences.

For example, a change such as disabling a monitoring service on a hardware CI will usually be of low impact, while deleting a software component from a server for a change management operation can have serious consequences.

However, as discussed above, CMDB information available to the Change Manager is likely to contain inaccuracies, even though such information is to be used as the basis for making changes.

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