CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT DATABASE STATE MODEL

• US 20070203952A1
• Filed: 02/28/2006
• Published: 08/30/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 02/28/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Rajarajan, Vij, Zizys, Giedrius, Baron, Anthony, Kumar, Dileep, Cain, Nigel, Vinberg, Anders, Sanghvi, Ashvinkumar, Hopper, Andrew
• Granted Patent: US 7,756,828 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

A configuration management database for storing configuration information about an IT system. The configuration management database may have representations of configuration items that correspond to configuration items in the IT system, indicia of relations between the configuration items, and attributes of the configuration items. The configuration management database may also have configuration state information of the configuration items, where the configuration state information has information indicating whether a configuration item, relation, or attribute is in a state of pending approval or in a state of planned deployment. The configuration management database may also have temporal information indicating a temporal state of a configuration item, relation, or attribute.

Claims

1. One or more computer readable volatile or nonvolatile computer readable media storing a configuration management database for storing configuration information about an IT system, the configuration management database comprising:

representations of configuration items that correspond to configuration items in the IT system, indicia of relations between the configuration items, and attributes of the configuration items;

configuration state information of the configuration items, the configuration state information comprising information indicating whether a configuration item, relation, or attribute is in a state of pending approval or in a state of planned deployment; and

temporal information indicating a temporal state of a configuration item, relation, or attribute.

2. One or more computer readable media according to claim 1, wherein the state information is stored in a field in the configuration management database.

3. One or more computer readable media according to claim 1, wherein the state information is in the form of one or more queues for storing configuration items, relations, or attributes, with different queues corresponding to different configuration states.

4. One or more computer readable media according to claim 1, wherein the configuration state information further comprises information indicating whether a configuration item, relation, or attribute is in an actual current state.

5. One or more computer readable media according to claim 1, wherein the configuration management database comprises, with respect to configuration items, relations, or attributes, pending future state information, historical pending rejected state information, future state information, desired/intended state information, historical desired/intended state information, current state information, and historical current state information.

6. One or more computer readable media according to claim 1, wherein the configuration items, relations, and attributes are instances are stored in accordance with an object model describing the IT system.

7. One or more computer readable media according to claim 6, wherein the configuration management database further comprises system definition model (SDM) metadata describing the object model.

8. A method of maintaining a configuration management database for storing configuration information about an IT system, the method comprising:

storing representations of configuration items that correspond to configuration items of which the IT system is comprised, configuration items including at least computers and/or components thereof, computing services, and applications;

in response to receiving new configuration states of the configuration items of the IT system, setting them to a pending future state;

in response to approvals of the pending future states, transitioning the pending future states to future states of the configuration items of the configuration items; and

in response to release of updates corresponding to the future states to the IT system, transitioning the future states to desired/intended states of the configuration items.

9. A method according to claim 8, further comprising transitioning some pending future states to historical pending future states in response to rejection or withdrawal of those pending future states.

10. A method according to claim 8, further comprising transitioning some desired/intended states to historical desired states in response to their being superseded by corresponding new desired/intended states.

11. A method according to claim 8, further comprising:

in response to deployment of a new desired/intended state or updating of a current state, transitioning a corresponding desired/intended state to a current state.

12. A method according to claim 11, further comprising copying the current state to a historical current state before it is updated or added as the transitioned new desired/intended state.

13. A method according to claim 8, further comprising updating current states in accordance with current operational state information obtained from the configuration items of the IT system.

14. A method according to claim 8, further comprising communicating between a plurality of data stores that together form the configuration management database, which comprises a federated configuration management database.

15. A method according to claim 14, wherein state transitions are managed by one or more management services including at least a change management service for managing change in the IT system.

16. A system of one or more cooperating devices configured for maintaining a configuration management database for storing configuration information about an IT system, the system comprising:

a storage storing representations of configuration items that correspond to configuration items of which the IT system is comprised, configuration items including at least computers and/or components thereof, computing services, and applications;

a logic unit that;

responds to receiving new configuration states of the configuration items of the IT system by setting them to a pending future state;

responds to approvals of the pending future states by transitioning the pending future states to future states of the configuration items of the configuration items; and

responds to release of updates corresponding to the future states to the IT system by transitioning the future states to desired/intended states of the configuration items.

17. A system according to claim 16, wherein the logic unit also transitions some pending future states to historical pending future states in response to rejection or withdrawal of those pending future states.

18. A system configured according to claim 16, wherein the logic unit also transitions some desired/intended states to historical desired states in response to their being superseded by corresponding new desired/intended states.

19. A system configured according to claim 16, wherein the logic unit responds to deployment of a new desired/intended state or updating of a current state by transitioning a corresponding desired/intended state to a current state.

20. A system configured according to claim 19, wherein the logic unit copies the current state to a historical current state before it is updated or added as the transitioned new desired/intended state.