I recently completed ITIL v3 foundation training through itSM Solutions. I’m interested in obtaining a copy of an example Service Catalog – especially one which shows both the Customer view and the IT view. Do you have an example document (or two) you could send to me?
I’m interested in determining where the Service Catalog stops and the CMDB begins. For example, if services are listed as CI’s in the CMBD (assuming that is “best practice”) and the underlying service components are also registered and linked to their corresponding services in the CMDB (again assuming this is “best practice”), doesn’t this replicate information in the “IT View” of the Service Catalog?
Regards,
Larry
Hi Larry,
An example Service Catalog is still on our ‘to do’ list, so I will try to describe the differences.
As described in the OGC’s Service Design publication, the Business view of the Service Catalog contains those items of direct interest to the business; e.g., Description, Supporting Services, Business Owners, Business Unit(s) Supported, Service Manager, Business Impact, Business Priority, Service Level Agreement (SLA) ID, Service Hours, Business Contacts, Escalation Contacts, Service Reviews, Security Rating, etc. The Technical view delves deeper into the service to identify the actual Configuration Items (CI), such as hardware, applications, network and relationships, that comprise it.
As to whether the Service Catalog replicates the information that is contained in the Configuration Management Database (CMDB), it is most accurate to describe the Service Catalog as a logical subset of the data within the Service Knowledge Management System (SKMS). The SKMS aggregates the data and information that come out of the various CMDBs that comprise the organization’s Configuration Management System (CMS) and provides data, information and knowledge about all facets of an IT service.
In summary, it is a ‘view’ into the CMDB, but it is not the actual repository . Thus, the various CMDBs collect and maintain data pertaining to the infrastructure, the CMS describes all the configuration management activity across the enterprise, and the Service Catalog is part of the SKMS that provides management information to IT.
I hope that this view of the relationship between the Service Catalog and the CMDB will help answer your question.