A configuration management database (CMDB) is a repository of information related to the various components of an information system detailing an organisation’s IT services and the relationships between those components. The purpose of a CMDB is to catalog and track all of the information that an IT department needs to keep.
The term CMDB stems from the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) best practices which include specifications for configuration management. These specifications detail four main tasks of configuration management. These consist of the identification of configuration items to be included in the CMDB, control of data, status maintenance, and verification (from audits and reviews of the data). The processes of configuration management seek to specify, control, and track configuration items and any changes made to them in a comprehensive and systematic fashion.
The purpose of this article is to identify proficient configuration management databases. Each software featured in this article is released under an open source license.
Let’s explore the 9 configuration management databases. For each title we have compiled its own portal page, a full description with an in-depth analysis of its features, a screenshot of the software in action, together with links to relevant resources.
| Configuration Management Databases | |
|---|---|
| Ralph | Simple yet full featured Asset Management, DCIM and CMDB system |
| CMDBuild | Manage a custom database of assets and design related workflow processes |
| iTop | Complete ITIL web based service management tool |
| i-doit | Web based IT documentation and Configuration Management Database |
| DATAGERRY | Enterprise-grade open source CMDB |
| VE CMDB | Customizable configuration management database |
| bk-cmdb | Resource-centric platform for organising hosts, processes, and generic objects |
| ObStack | Fully dynamically configure data object types |
| OneCMDB | Includes Nagios configuration and NMAP discovery tools |
This article has been updated to reflect the changes outlined in our recent announcement.
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