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Central Management Server:The Poor Man’s CMDB

About Me: Brent Ozar• SQL Server Expert for

Quest Software• Former SQL DBA• Managed >80tb SAN,

Vmware• Specializes in

performance tuning• Like you, overworked

and underpaid

Today’s Agenda• What’s a CMDB?• What’s a CMS?• Building a CMS• Populating the CMDB• Extending the CMDB• Where to Go Next

Life as a DBA• How many servers do I have?• What versions/editions are they?• What applications are they hosting?• Who has permissions to log in?• What isn’t configured correctly?• What is “best practices” today?• What changed recently?• How does all this relate to the business?

Configuration Management DB“A configuration management database (CMDB) is a repository of information related to all the components of an information system. Although repositories similar to CMDBs have been used by IT departments for many years, the term CMDB stems from ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library). In the ITIL context, a CMDB represents the authorized configuration of the significant components of the IT environment. A key goal of a CMDB is to help an organization understand the relationships between these components and track their configuration. The CMDB is a fundamental component of the ITIL framework's Configuration Management process. CMDB implementations often involve integration with other systems, such as Asset Management Systems. These integrations may make use of either a real-time, federated design or an ETL (extract, transform, load) solution.”From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMDB

Photo Licensed with Creative Commons at http://www.flickr.com/photos/doodlemonger/2667917978/

Configuration Management DB“A configuration management database (CMDB) is a repository of information related to all the components of an information system. Although repositories similar to CMDBs have been used by IT departments for many years, the term CMDB stems from ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library). In the ITIL context, a CMDB represents the authorized configuration of the significant components of the IT environment. A key goal of a CMDB is to help an organization understand the relationships between these components and track their configuration. The CMDB is a fundamental component of the ITIL framework's Configuration Management process. CMDB implementations often involve integration with other systems, such as Asset Management Systems. These integrations may make use of either a real-time, federated design or an ETL (extract, transform, load) solution.”From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMDB

Photo Licensed with Creative Commons at http://www.flickr.com/photos/doodlemonger/2667917978/

Why Isn’t Everyone Doing It?

Photo Licensed with Creative Commons at http://www.flickr.com/photos/acidpix/1531758457/

The Experts Say…

All DBAs Really Want• Servers• Databases• Applications• Users & Contacts• Configurations• History

All DBAs Really Know

Our CMDB Will Be:• Based on T-SQL,

SQL Server 2008 Technologies

• Easy to Pick Up• Extendible• Flexible• Community-

Driven

My Lab Environment

P-SQL20081\CMS

P-SQL20001

P-SQL20051

P-SQL20081

P-SQL20052

P-SQL20082

T-DISCOWHIZ

WKG-SQL20051

Central Management Server

Gotchas & Pitfalls• Case Sensitivity• Collations• Servers That Disappear• Consolidating Histories• CMDB Schema Forks

Next Steps & Ideas• More discovery queries• Saving baselines & history• Relating people & applications• SSRS reports• Getting the code

How to Get Started Today• Today’s Scripts:

http://sqlserverpedia.com/wiki/CMDB

• Quest Discovery Wizard:http://www.quest.com/discovery-wizard-for-sql-server/

• My Blog on SQL Server:http://www.BrentOzar.com