Configuration Management: Assess

As detailed in the Configuration Management ITSM process, before the IT organization can control configuration management and only allow authorized and approved changes, IT organizations must identify the configuration structure and understand their current state.

Log Intelligence solution can be used to assess several aspect of the current configuration state, including:

  • Assess the frequency of changes being made to critical IT infrastructures such as network devices and applications
  • Identify the users and IP addresses that are making these critical changes
  • Determine changes that are made often as they might be candidates for standard changes
  • Establish configuration change trends such as days of the week when most changes occur
  • Verify that all changes made are in fact the same as the CMDB record

The result of the assessment can also be correlated with data from assessment of the Incident Management process. For example, the correlated result may indicate that:

  • More incidents are reported when many configuration changes occur in a short period of time
  • More incidents are reported when a certain user is making these changes
  • More incidents are reported when a particular web proxy configuration was made

Senior management can now use the result of the assessment to set goals and directions on what improvements must be made to the Configuration Management process.