CMDB Auto-Attestation for Trusted Configuration Item Accuracy
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Solution Overview
Problem
Configuration items in a configuration management database (CMDB) often become obsolete or out of date, affecting the accuracy of higher-layer applications and hindering efficient network management.
Innovation Solution
Implementing auto-attestation techniques to identify configuration items updated by trusted sources within a defined time frame, flagging unattested items for user verification, and providing graphical interfaces for review and accuracy confirmation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If manual verification of all configuration items is performed, then accuracy is improved, but time consumption and operational complexity increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs attestation on only a subset of configuration items that meet specific criteria (recent updates from trusted sources), rather than requiring verification of all items. This partial action approach maintains accuracy for critical items while significantly reducing the time and effort required compared to comprehensive manual verification of the entire configuration inventory.
Solution Approach 2:
Configuration items that are updated by trusted automated sources automatically receive an auto-attested status without requiring manual verification. The system self-determines the accuracy of these items based on the trustworthiness of the data source and recency of updates, eliminating the need for time-consuming manual review while maintaining high accuracy standards.
2Measurement precision
If comprehensive manual review of configuration items is conducted, then accuracy is improved, but operational complexity and user burden increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system automatically attests configuration items based on predefined criteria, requiring user intervention only for items that do not meet the automatic attestation thresholds. This dramatically reduces the number of items users must manually review while maintaining comprehensive accuracy oversight, thereby improving ease of operation without sacrificing measurement precision.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary automatic attestation on configuration items before presenting them for potential manual review. By pre-processing and auto-attesting items that meet confidence criteria, the system filters out the majority of items from requiring user attention, leaving only uncertain cases for manual verification and thus greatly simplifying the user operation process.
3Loss of information
If all configuration items are retained in the CMDB, then completeness is maintained, but memory utilization and system performance deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts and removes configuration items that have been determined to be obsolete or inaccurate through the auto-attestation process. By identifying and eliminating stale entries from the CMDB while preserving accurate and relevant configuration information, the system reduces memory utilization and improves performance without causing loss of important configuration data.
Solution Approach 2:
The system discards configuration items that fail auto-attestation criteria (indicating they are likely obsolete or inaccurate) while recovering and maintaining items that pass the criteria. This selective discarding process reduces the quantity of stored information to only what is currently accurate and relevant, thereby improving memory efficiency and system performance while maintaining information completeness for valid configuration items.
Data Source
AI summary
Persistent storage may contain definitions of: configuration items (CIs) each having attributes that characterize a respective hardware or software component, a list of data sources used to update at least some of the CIs, and an auto-attestation time period; and one or more processors configured to: identify a plurality of the CIs for auto-attestation; for each respective CI, determine a respective condition of whether: (i) a data-source attribute of the respective CI indicates that it was updated by a trusted data source, and (ii) a most-recent-update attribute of the respective CI indicates that it was updated within the auto-attestation time period; and mark each respective CI based on its respective condition, wherein the respective CI is marked as auto-attested when its respective condition is true, and wherein the respective CI is marked as not auto-attested when its respective condition is false.