What is ServiceNow CMDB?

CMDB stands for Configuration Management Database. It's a set of tables within the whole ServiceNow database that record data about all of the IT assets that a company has. It contains data about servers, printers, scanners and any other IT related devices that might be on a company's network. For each device, it typically contains data like: -

1. Device ID

2. Device type (server, workstation, laptop etc)

3. Status (in production, or in development)

4. owner (IT operations team, HR team etc)

5. Location (server room, rack 1 etc)

6. IP address, 

7. Related CIs (this contains a list of all other devices that this device is connected to. This could be a web app server, database server, a router, load balancer etc)

8. Last updated (the date on which this machine was last updated), 

9. Operating System (Windows, Linux etc)

10. Software Installed (Apache HTTP Server, Tomcat etc)

And there can be other columns depending upon the type of devices. For e.g. in hospitals, special devices like MRI machines etc might be connected to the network and their specific hardware/software and other specs would have to be recorded in the CMDB too.

So how is the CMDB useful? Well, it shows the IT team, a bird's eye view of the entire IT landscape of the company. This helps the team see that if a server on the network goes down, which services would stop working and how to fix the server as quickly as possible.

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