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Use Case Overview
BDNA Solutions for Configuration
Management Database
Build an Accurate, Reliable CMDB as the Single
Source of Truth
A configuration management database (CMDB) is the central and single
source of truth that drives IT functions including IT and Software Asset
Management (ITAM/SAM), Service Desk/IT Service Management (ITSM),
Licensing Compliance, Procurement, Audits, Enterprise Architecture (EA),
IT GRC, and more.
These functions all depend on the CMDB having reliable and accurate
data. However, the data needed to build a CMDB is spread across multiple
disparate systems, and is largely inconsistent, inaccurate, incomplete, and
constantly changing.
BDNA enables organizations to build and maintain an accurate, reliable
CMDB by consolidating data across multiple systems, cleansing the data,
enriching it with market information, and keeping it current with product
and market changes.
Key Benefits
Consolidate CI data across
multiple disparate systems
Standardize CIs with a
comprehensive catalog of CI
models and categories
Achieve high CMDB accuracy
rates and keep CI data current
Automate CMDB data
maintenance by simplifying and
cleansing discovery data
Augment CI data with missing
metadata
BDNA Solutions for CMDB
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Challenge
BDNA Technopedia Content Packs
Configuration Management pros face multiple challenges as
they struggle to create a single source of truth usable by all
applications:
BDNA provides non-discoverable market intelligence for various
IT initiatives via various content packs.
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Data is spread across multiple disparate systems including
discovery tools, patch and network management systems,
and monitoring systems. In addition, organizations may use
different discovery systems for different types of devices,
such as servers, Windows devices, Apple devices, and Unix/
Linux devices. Individual departments or business units
may have their own legacy CMDBs. All of this data must be
consolidated and integrated.
Management of complex, non-standard product names
and versioning structures is difficult to automate. Software
products have proprietary versioning structures with suite
and edition variations which makes it difficult to track and
manage them. The complexity increases exponentially with
each product and vendor.
Raw discovery data is not standardized and often
incomplete or inaccurate, requiring heavy processing
and complex logic to establish CI identity, versioning, and
licensing relationships. Manual changes cannot keep up with
fast-changing product data.
Software and hardware products are proliferating. In 2013
alone, the top five vendors as measured by new software
releases published a total of more than 10,000 new products
and four times as many updates to existing software.
Manually tracking and maintaining this information requires
dedicated resources and achieves only 60 percent accuracy.
Much critical data is not discoverable. Many market data
points required by applications that consume CMDB data,
such as end-of-life dates, vendor-specific licensing data, and
OS compatibility are not discoverable, originate outside of
IT, and are constantly changing.
For all of these reasons, CI data is fraught with data quality
issues that bring the average accuracy rate of CMDB data down
to less than 75 percent—a significant problem given that CMDB
data must be at least 97 percent accurate to be actionable.
Content Pack
Initiative
End-of-life
Lifecycle, Compliance, Enterprise
Architecture
Form factor
Data Center Planning/
Consolidation
Power rating
IT cost, Green IT, Data Center
Consolidation
CPU Core
Core-based licensing, Server
Management
Parent Company
Vendor/Incident Management
Application
Compatibility
Virtualization, OS migration, App
Modernization
Licensing
SAM, Audits, License Optimization
NIST Vulnerability
mappings (CPE-CVECVSS)
IT GRC, Vulnerability Management,
Security, Compliance
Open Source
IT GRC, Licensing Audits, Security
Procurement
Audits, Spend Management
Cloud
Cloud Migration, IT Transformation
BDNA Normalize
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Normalizes discovery data from more than 45 popular data
sources across all top vendors, including Microsoft, IBM, HP,
ServiceNow, BMC, and others
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Filters irrelevant data, de-duplicates across data sources,
and enriches with market data from Technopedia
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Delivers categorized, consistent, and accurate asset/CI
models
Products
BDNA enables organizations to build an accurate and reliable
CMDB as the single source of truth to drive functions across the
enterprise.
BDNA Technopedia Catalog & Content
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World’s largest categorized repository of more than 1.2
million hardware and software products across 22,000
vendors
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100% coverage and accuracy
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Tested and proven process to keep catalog up-to-date with
more than 2000 updates per day
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More than 40 million data points of non-discoverable market
data, including software end-of-life, CPU cores, licensing,
and more
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Your BDNA Results with BDNA Solutions for the Configuration Management
Database (CMDB)
Standardize CIs with a comprehensive catalog of CI models and categories
BDNA’s Technopedia Catalog delivers more than 1.2 million unique software and hardware models with category and version
information. This provides a reference product catalog that can be used to standardize CIs across all data sources.
Consolidate CI data across systems
BDNA has built-in data extractors to aggregate CI data across more than 45 data sources, including HP, ServiceNow, BMC, Microsoft,
IBM, and others. BDNA Normalize then filters the noise, de-duplicates and normalizes the data to establish CI identity, and then
enriches it with non-discoverable market data from Technopedia.
Achieve high CMDB accuracy rates and always keep CI data current
Leveraging Technopedia, the most comprehensive repository of accurate and up-to-date product information, BDNA delivers 100
percent coverage and accuracy for CI data and metadata.
Automate CMDB population by simplifying and cleansing discovery data
BDNA takes the raw discovery data, filters out noise, normalizes it to the product catalog, and enriches it with missing information.
BDNA has certified integrations with the top CMDB vendors to ensure that CI data and metadata are automatically populated and kept
current.
Enrich CI data with missing metadata
BDNA solutions augment CI data with non-discoverable metadata and market information, includingend-of-life dates, support type, OS
compatibility, upgrade and downgrade paths, versioning and licensing information, and more. This information is critical for applications
using the CMDB.
How to Purchase
Support and Professional Services
BDNA creates better data about their IT estate that
organizations use to make better decisions, lower costs
and accelerate the pace of their businesses. To start using
BDNA please visit bdna.com, fill out our contact form
and request a demo of our products so you can begin to
promote business agility and efficiency in your enterprise
immediately.
BDNA understands how important it is to respond
quickly, drive better results and ask the right questions
to its customers. Our customer support and professional
services is committed to keeping customers happy and
up-to-date so their needs are met each and every day.
Communication is a key element when partnering with
our customers and helps in building stronger and longlasting relationships. We want our customers to know we
are here to help them in the short and long-term, as well
as understand the value our products bring to their data
when making business decisions.
Find out more
For more information call 650-625-9530 or visit www.bdna.com to learn more about how BDNA can
transform your enterprise IT data.
Copyright © 2015. All rights reserved. BDNA, trademarks, registered trademarks or service
marks are property of their respective owners. 04/01/2015
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