Planning for configuration management

To make effective and efficient use of configuration management, you must identify the types of configuration items that you want to manage and which of their attributes and relationships you will monitor.

It is not productive to give equal attention to every type of CI, and every attribute, that is discovered in your infrastructure. You must determine, based on the needs of your business, which types of CIs to focus on. The answer will be different for every business. Planning which types and attributes you will manage is a significant effort, but one that will help you to concentrate your time and attention in areas that will enable you to run your business more efficiently.

There are two major areas of planning: first, you must understand what items are present in your IT environment, and then you must narrow down the list to the items and attributes that it will be worthwhile to manage. You should not activate CI types or import actual CI data until you have completed these steps.