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Configuration Items (CIs)

A Configuration Item (CI) is a fundamental record in the CMDB representing any component that needs to be managed to deliver an IT service. CIs and their relationships form the core of your service map.

While an asset record tracks the financial and contractual details of an item (what you own), a CI record tracks its functional role in the IT environment (what it does). A single asset, like a physical server, can be represented as multiple CIs—for example, the server itself, its operating system, the applications running on it, and the databases it hosts.

CI Types and Classification​

ServiceOps uses a hierarchical classification system to organize CIs, allowing you to create a logical structure that mirrors your IT environment. The system comes with standard high-level CI types like Hardware, Software, Service, and Network. You can also create up to five levels of custom sub-types to categorize your CIs with greater precision (e.g., under Hardware, you could create categories for Servers, and under that, Web Servers and Database Servers). Each CI type can have its own unique form with custom fields, validation rules, and suggested relationships, ensuring you capture the right information for every component.

The CI Status​

CIs have a defined lifecycle that reflects their operational status, which can be synchronized with the corresponding asset status. This includes statuses such as Operational (the CI is active and delivering a service), Non-Operational (the CI is not currently in use but is available), In Maintenance (the CI is temporarily offline for planned maintenance or updates), and Retired (the CI has been decommissioned and is no longer part of the operational environment).

CI Lifecycle​

The CI lifecycle defines the essential stages that a Configuration Item progresses through, from its initial discovery and creation to its eventual retirement and archiving. This structured approach ensures that CIs are consistently managed, accurately maintained, and remain relevant to the IT services they support throughout their entire lifespan.

  1. Discovery and Identification: This initial stage involves the systematic process of automatically discovering and identifying Configuration Items (CIs) and associated assets across the entire IT environment. This is achieved through various agent-based or agentless methods, which scan for hardware, software, network devices, and other components to build a foundational inventory.
  2. Classification: Following discovery, this stage focuses on precisely identifying and categorizing the attributes of each discovered device. This includes details such as the operating system, kernel version, hardware specifications, installed software, and network configurations. Accurate classification is crucial for organizing CIs within the CMDB and ensuring they are managed appropriately.
  3. CI Creation: Configuration Items are formally created and added to the CMDB during this stage. This can be accomplished through several methods: manual entry for unique or specialized items, automated creation directly from discovery tools, or automatically via synchronization rules that link directly with existing asset records, ensuring data consistency and reducing manual effort.
  4. Configuration & Relationship Mapping: This critical stage involves defining and meticulously mapping the intricate relationships and dependencies between different CIs. For example, an application CI might be linked to the server CI it runs on, which in turn might depend on a storage CI. Understanding these connections is fundamental for conducting effective impact analysis and comprehending how individual components influence overall IT services.
  5. Synchronization & Status Mapping: To maintain data integrity and operational accuracy, this stage focuses on linking the lifecycles of assets and CIs. It ensures that the operational status of a CI (e.g., operational, non-operational, in maintenance, retired) is consistently synchronized with the status of its corresponding asset. This bi-directional mapping provides a unified view of both the financial and functional aspects of each item.
  6. Auditing & Maintenance: The CMDB is not static; this stage involves regularly auditing its contents for data accuracy and integrity. This includes verifying that CI records reflect the current state of the IT environment, updating configurations, refining synchronization rules, and adjusting discovery preferences as the infrastructure evolves. Proactive maintenance is vital for the CMDB's long-term reliability.
  7. Retirement & Archiving: When a CI reaches the end of its useful life and is decommissioned, its status is formally updated to 'Retired' or a similar state within the CMDB. Subsequently, its record is carefully archived for historical purposes, compliance requirements, and to ensure a complete audit trail of the IT environment's evolution.

Key Capabilities​

CI Creation & Population
  • Automated Discovery: The most effective way to populate your CMDB is through automated discovery. Use agent-based or agentless methods to scan your environment and create CIs automatically.
  • Asset Sync: Ensure seamless alignment between Assets and CIs. Whenever an asset is created or updated, the corresponding CI is automatically created or updated based on business processes. This keeps data synchronized across both records, including attributes, key details, and lifecycle statuses—ensuring consistency and accuracy throughout the asset and CI lifecycle.
  • Manual & Bulk Creation: Manually create individual CIs or use the bulk import feature to load a large number of CIs from a CSV file.
CI Properties
  • Comprehensive Details: Each CI record stores vital information, including a unique ID, name, type, status, business impact, location, and ownership details.
  • Type-Specific Attributes: Capture detailed hardware specifications (manufacturer, model, serial number), software versions, license information, and more, depending on the CI type.
  • Custom Fields: Add custom fields to CI forms to capture any additional information your organization needs for operational or compliance purposes.
Process Integration
  • Incident Management: When an incident occurs, link it to the affected CI to speed up diagnosis and resolution by providing support teams with immediate context.
  • Change Management: Associate change requests with the CIs they will affect. This is crucial for performing impact analysis and understanding the risk of a change.
  • Problem Management: Use CI relationship data to trace the root cause of recurring incidents.
  • Asset Management: Maintain a seamless, bi-directional sync between an asset record and its corresponding CI, ensuring data consistency between financial and operational views.

CI Relationships​

The true power of a CMDB comes from understanding the relationships between CIs.

  • Dependency Mapping: Define how CIs depend on each other. For example, a "Runs on" relationship shows an application CI runs on a server CI.
  • Impact Analysis: The relationship map allows you to instantly see the downstream impact of a CI failure or change. If a server goes down, you know exactly which applications and business services will be affected.
  • Visualization: Use the relationship graph to get a clear, visual representation of your service dependencies, which is invaluable for troubleshooting and planning.

For more details, see CI Relationships and Dependencies.

Best Practices​

Data Quality
  1. Start Small: Don't try to track everything. Begin by mapping the CIs for one or two critical business services.
  2. Use Automation: Rely on automated discovery to populate and maintain your CMDB. Manual data entry is the primary source of errors and outdated information.
  3. Establish Governance: Define clear ownership and processes for creating, updating, and retiring CIs. A CMDB without governance quickly becomes unreliable.
  4. Regularly Audit: Schedule regular reviews to verify the accuracy of your CMDB data and prune any stale or incorrect records.
Relationship Management
  1. Focus on Key Dependencies: Document the most critical relationships first, especially those that support key business services.
  2. Use Suggested Relationships: Configure suggested relationship types for your CIs to guide users and ensure consistency.
  3. Validate Relationships: During change reviews and post-incident analysis, validate that the relationships in the CMDB reflect reality.