Recently, I have been working with my colleagues in integrating a CMDB with other ITIL processes. We discussed with the CMDB vendor about how we could extract data from it, and the answer was there was no way, and the CMDB is considered the end of the line (not life!).
I spent years talking about (and implementing) CMDB solutions at many customers. We discussed data integration, federation, reconciliation and many other aspects. In many cases, after a long time implementing it, we'd look at a perfect CMDB without a clear understanding on what we would be doing with it.
I understand CMDB is intended to gather data from different sources and is the cornerstone of the ITIL processes. Ideally these ITIL processes would leverage the data in CMDB, without replicating it. The reality thou is different: in many cases, some data need to be extracted from CMDB and loaded into another product (whether from the same vendor or not).
At IBM, we've built the ITIL processes on same platform (Tivoli Process Automation Engine) as the CMDB. Nevertheless, we provide many different ways to extract from (and load into) Tivoli Change and Configuration Management Database (CCMDB).
If your CMDB vendor doesn't provide a way to extract data, my challenge to you is to describe what are the use cases you're planning to use the CMDB for. My opinion: building a CMDB should not be the target, but just the catalyst of a Service Management initiative.
Thoughts? Am I missing anything?
