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IT MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS AND CONSULTING
Executive Summary
Configuration Management Database System (CMDBS) deployments have been evolving signifi-
cantly over the last few years towards higher levels of federation, growing CI scope, and more
defined paths to value. At the same time, the frustration level with assimilating CMDB-related tech-
nologies has risen over the last two years and some hard lessons have been learned. Chief among
them is to start with a well-planned and well-defined first phase that can deliver value quickly.
The research summarized here is directed at technology issues and priorities across the CMDB
landscape in North America, EMEA, APAC and the rest of the world, with concentration in North
America. The goal was to bore deeply into technology issues and priorities for federation, configu-
ration item (CI) modeling, reporting, discovery, application dependency mapping, and other areas.
The research was also designed to assimilate 2009 realities with the relative fast-track that CMDB
acceptance has so far sustained, to anticipate better where and how the CMDB “train” might be
about to “derail.” Overall, however, the results were encouraging, and tend to support the idea that
IT executives recognize the cost-saving values of CMDB deployments as creative approaches to
working more effectively, instead of being scared away by, the transformative nature of CMDBS
initiatives. In other words, CMDB Systems are part of the cure to the economic downturn, rather
than being its casualties, or worse, part of the problem.
Some of the highlights from the research include:
• Larger enterprises are still clearly dominant in the CMDB mix, but show a more eclectic
range of company sizes. For instance, in Q2 2008, 44% respondent companies had more
than 20,000 employees versus 35% in 2009.
• While decreasing IT budgets outpaced increasing IT budgets overall on at 2.5 to 1 ratio,
budgets for CMDB-related initiatives were much less impacted. CMDB-related spending
showed an only 8% difference between decreasing and increasing budgets, with 42% staying
the same – or in other words relatively flat. This is a clear sign that more and more IT
organizations are grasping the fact that CMDB investments represent a creative approach
to gaining operational efficiencies, minimizing risk, and optimizing capex assets through
automated insights into duplicative, unused, or inappropriately licensed assets.
• Overall, 2009 CMDBS deployments have matured to be centered in first-phase production
rather than initial planning.
• One of the more significant trends in 2009 would appear to be the rise of new groups –
predominantly called “Service Management” – as a clear and close second to IT Operations
overall, which has dominated CMDB “ownership” ever since 2005. “Service Management”
garnered a full 25% of respondent votes compared to only 13% in Q2 2008 – quite a
rise for merely nine months difference! Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) views
this as a sign of maturity as Service Management significantly outpaces IT Operations in
phase of deployment, multi-brand federation, and quantified benefits from CMDB System
deployments.
• The breadth of CIs supported is significant and on the rise. Not only are 36% targeting
between 10,000 and 99,999 CIs, but 4% are actually currently supporting more than a
million CIs!
CMDB System Deployments in 2009: From Philosophy to Federation
©2009 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Page 1
IT MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS AND CONSULTING
• Another interesting analysis shows that larger CMS deployments actually favor getting more
IT investments. In the categories of 10,000- 99,999 CIs and 100,000 CIs or more, respondents
indicated that their CMDB dollars for 2009 are increasing, while those with fewer CIs show a
decrease. In other words, larger, more evolved CMDBS deployments are crossing that critical line
in the sand towards showing value and convincing executives that further investments are key.
• The average CMDBS deployment in 2009 is tracking roughly three CI states, with
“discovered,” “desired,” and “pre-production” or “planned/future” being the top three in
that order.
• “Lack of automation in establishing and maintaining CMDB data” is far and away the
number one concern for most adopters, gaining more than three times the second-place
vote, which is for “timeliness of data” or update intervals. Indeed, since automation is an
essential enabler of timely updates, it’s not surprising that it gets top billing.
• Application Dependency Mapping challenges include administrative overhead, lack of
currency, cost and lack of visibility into how the ADM tool identifies specific CIs (to match
up with core CMDB Systems), in that order of priority.
• There is a definite and defined constituency of CMDBS adopters seeking mainframe support
(34%), while a slightly larger number, 36%, claim that mainframes are not at all a part of
their CMDB plans.
• The move towards federation is far from a purely “ideological” one – in support of ITIL v3
versus v2. To some degree, in fact, ITIL was actually catching up with real-world requirements
and practices being established well before the spring of 2007, as IT adopters increasingly
realized that the endgame for CMDBs wasn’t simply to update a single, massive repository.
Instead, CI attribute information, ranging from asset to performance information, was
lodged natively in other federated sources, most of which would not be replicated in a core
system, but linked to it by a cohesive data model and normalized means for identifying CIs
and CI attributes. It is both significant and validating, then, that only 14% of respondents in
Q1 2009 state that “they are not yet concerned about federation.”
• When asked about support for multi-brand investments versus a single broad portfolio,
respondents favored “a CMDB choice that most effectively reconciles and assimilates key
existing and planned investments in management tools including multi-brand solutions,”
over a vendor with the greatest single portfolio breadth by a margin of more than two
to one. This is in keeping with the core driver behind CMDB deployments – which is
fundamentally the need to integrate and reconcile existing investments rather than rip and
replace existing management software with a new framework design.
• Respondents revealed that operational efficiencies were the number one business benefit
achieved to date from CMDBS deployments, followed by improved availability for critical
business services and asset savings from better software license management and eliminating
redundant hardware.
• In terms of hard value, while 39% of respondents claimed proactive cost benefits of only
$50,000 or less, 37% achieved cost efficiencies in excess of $250,000 over a twelve-month
period. When correlated with company size, time in deployment, phases in deployment
and other criteria, the number one most impacting factor in achieving high dollar benefits
was the level of executive involvement. This underscores the political and cultural roots of
CMDBS initiatives, versus viewing them as primarily software deployments.
CMDB System Deployments in 2009: From Philosophy to Federation
©2009 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Page 2
IT MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS AND CONSULTING
Research Methodology
Research targeted 162 quantitative respondents and twelve focal interviews targeting individuals
(architects, strategists, executives) directly involved with CMDBS deployments. The quantitative
data presented here was taken from surveys collected in February 2009. Focal interviews were
conducted throughout February, March and early April. Advanced analytic techniques were used
to discover unusual areas of confluence, and when appropriate, comparisons were made with 2008
research findings to underscore significant shifts in direction.
Demographics
In order to participate in the survey, respondents had to answer the following questions with a “yes:”
• Are you familiar with what a CMDB or CMDB System is?
• Is your company currently deploying or actively planning to deploy a CMDB or CMDB
System?
• Are you playing an active role either as manager, process coordinator, architect, consultant,
or stakeholder in the planning and/or deployment of your CMDB or CMDB System?
EMA also terminated on deployments that were only on the “first, exploratory stages,” as well as
respondents with only an administrator role, and companies smaller than 250 employees. However,
EMA did want to include a range of smaller and mid-tier businesses in its analysis beyond the 250
level, as many CMDBS deployments have moved beyond only larger enterprises. Figure 1 shows
that larger enterprises are still clearly dominant in the CMDB mix, but show a more eclectic range
of company sizes. For instance, in Q2 2008, 44% versus 35% in 2009 were companies of 20,000
and above.
How many employees are in your company worldwide?
500 - 999
4%
1,000 - 2,499
12%
2,500 - 4,999
13%
5,000 - 9,999
16%
10,000 - 19,999
19%
20,000 or more
35%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
Column %
Figure 1: Respondents progress in linear stages towards larger enterprises. But while large enterprises, as
usual, dominate among the respondent base, there is a growing and significant mid-tier presence
CMDB System Deployments in 2009: From Philosophy to Federation
©2009 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Page 3
IT MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS AND CONSULTING
This is consistent with the trend observed and documented over the last several years that smaller
and mid-tier companies are not left out of the CMDB landscape, but are typically one-to-two
years behind larger enterprises in terms of when they initiate their CMDB programs. Verticals in
2009 (Figure 2) are also consistent with prior years overall, especially the leading role of financial
services, even in the current economic environment, in committing to CMDB deployments. It is
worth noting that Telecommunications is well ahead of its seventh place ranking (at 5%) among the
respondent base, as telcos are clearly in need of more advanced levels of operational efficiency.
Which of the following best describes your company’s primary industry?
Finance/Banking/Insurance
Telecommunications
Healthcare/Medical/Pharmaceutical
Manufacturing – All Other (Not Computer or Networking
Related)
Government
Retail/Wholesale/Distribution
Other (Please specify)
High Technology - Application/Internet/Managed/Network
Service Provider
Education
Utilities/Energy
Transportation/Airlines/Trucking/Rail
Professional Services/Consulting - Computer or
Networking Related
Oil/Gas/Chemicals
Aerospace/Defense
Professional Services/Consulting – All Other (Not
Computer or Networking Related)
Hospitality/Entertainment/Recreation/Travel
0%
23%
12%
10%
9%
8%
6%
5%
4%
4%
2%
2%
2%
2%
2%
2%
2%
10%
20%
30%
Column %
Figure 2: Financial services, telecommunications, healthcare, manufacturing and government lead verticals
CMDB System Deployments in 2009: From Philosophy to Federation
©2009 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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