CMDB solution provides better IT asset inventory management and operational benefits. Organizations tend to install it for a competitive edge and efficiency.
Overview
We have recently started a content series on Configuration management database software (CMDB) and published some open source and free products such as Ralph, Snipe-IT, and a tutorial blog post How To Set Up CMDB Solution Ralph On Localhost. CMDB software category is gaining popularity in organizations maintaining huge IT infrastructure. There is a strong need for automation of repetitive tasks and some sort of resource tracking and management. However, most of the cloud-based software solutions available come with paid versions, and also there are some data security concerns attached. Therefore, the open source community has developed self-hosted and cross-platform configuration management database software that empowers the whole IT environment with IT Asset management services.
These configuration management systems offer utilities to maintain the record of configuration items. These configuration items (CIs) include printers, servers, software, scanners, QR code scanners, bar code readers, configurations and etc. Therefore, in this blog post, we will explore the impact of CMDB software on any business’s IT department by covering the following points.
- What is CMDB software?
- Top 5 open source best CMDB software
- Impact of CMDB software on IT asset management services
- Conclusion
What is CMDB software?
Configuration management database software is a database that stores information about configuration items and their relationship details. Moreover, there are many types of configuration items (CIs) that could be hardware or software and CIs are the integral component of any CMDB software. Some of the organizations used this solution to track business locations, documents, and business contracts. Business stakeholders manage to make the right decisions by having to look at all assets and their dependencies on one another. Therefore, they can forecast the future trends, potential, and threats that may occur. These free solutions provide a clear demonstration of data in a well-arranged way. There is a user-friendly and logical dashboard that fetches the data from various sources in real-time, processes it, and then shows the processed data in different types of widgets. Moreover, CMDB software designed to provide support for additional CIs if needed.
Top 5 open source best CMDB software
In this section, we will explore the top-rated Configuration management database software.
Ralph
Ralph is an open source free resource management software. It is cross-platform and comes up with self-hosting capabilities. It is highly extensible and provides REST API for third-party integrations. Then, there is complete support for data centers and office IT infrastructure. However, this real-time asset tracking software is written in Python and comes with comprehensive documentation regarding development and deployment. Therefore, all the source code is available at Github.
Ralph provides the following key features
- Built-in DC Visualization
- Asset Tracking
- Lightweight
Snipe-IT
Snipe-IT is another open source software that provides asset and configuration tracking. This resource management platform is supported by AWS. It is highly secured and provides login options using two-factor authentication and SAML support. It is also self-hosted and easy to set up. This CMDB solution is written in PHP and all the source code is available at GitHub.
Following are the core features of Snipe-IT
- RESTful Interface
- Integration With Slack and LDAP
- Import/Export Options
Foreman
Foreman is another open source tool to manage physical and virtual servers. It is highly customizable and provides a REST API to build needed functionalities. Moreover, there is complete support for managing configurations, app deployments, change in configurations and system admins can get detailed reports. It is self-hosted and all the source code is available at Github.
Forman offers the following main features
- Easy To Set up
- Reporting And Monitoring
- Plugin Architecture
RackTables
RackTables is an open source asset management system for data centers, server rooms. It also provides support for managing network addresses, network configurations, load balancing configurations, and other hardware equipment. Further, it lets users create permissions, user tagging, and documentation of firewalls.
RackTables provides the following prominent features
- File Management
- Self-hosted
- Physical Ports Management
iTop
IT Operations Portal is a free self-hosted solution that provides a CMDB solution, helpdesk system, and a document management tool. It offers rich import and export options.
iTop offers key features
- Automatic Impact Analysis
- Change Management
- Data Synchronization
Impact of CMDB software on IT asset management services
Better Risk Evaluation For Changes: It is a very critical step to bring any change in the existing system. However, administrators leverage good CMDB software to analyze the items and their relationships.
Transparency And Visibility: CMDB solutions maintain the records of configuration throughout their life cycle. Therefore, there is transparency as every entity is traceable at any step.
Data Centralization: There is a huge IT infrastructure in big organizations and every component is interlinked and has shared databases. Therefore, it enables users to trace any issue or downtime.
Knowledge Base: CMDB software contains complete details of the configuration items and their relationships. Above all, this information is used to formulate a road map to manage resources in an efficient way.
Incident Management: Organizations can leverage Configuration management database software to track incident management. In addition, CMDB software with auto-update mode keeps any incident in the loop for better problem management.
Improved Security: Having an updated CMDB software can give you confidence regarding security and you can take decisions about any vulnerability.
Conclusion
This is the end of this blog post. In this article, we found that configuration management systems play a decisive role in IT asset management services by providing transparency, efficiency, and robustness. Further, it centralizes the data and for a better understanding of risks and opportunities. However, It is high time to choose an open source CMDB solution for your IT department and boost business operations that otherwise are time-consuming.
Finally, containerize.com is writing articles on further open source products. Therefore, please stay in touch with the Configuration management database software (CMDB) category for regular updates.