Too Much or Too Little Data?

I’ve been sitting back watching networking publications and industry analysts banter back and forth about the pros and cons of what vendors are touting as CMDBs. Most notable were a Network World article and a newsletter posting.

The article I’m referring to was written by Denise Dubie on September 20^th, entitled, Interop panel: Is network management irrelevant? In the article, Shmuel Klinger, vice president of architecture and applied research with EMC, states that, “…management vendors continue to collect more data and provide network managers with information on applications and systems performance, yet don’t provide enough intelligence or automation within their products for network managers to find the data useful for anything more than just an annoyance.

Contrasting Klinger’s “data annoyance” are Julie Craig’s comments in a recent Network World newsletter. Craig’s point is “The ITIL concept of a CMDB doesn't specify implementation details. And as time goes on and technology becomes increasingly complex, many vendors are finding that more and more information is needed to manage today's complex technology. The result is that, while ITIL focuses on CMDB Configuration Items (CI) as infrastructure elements and their relationships, today's CMDBs are also storing additional information that has become increasingly relevant over time.” So, which is it? Are we capturing too much or too little data?

I am strongly of the belief that the more information you capture, the more intelligent your decision-making will be. With initiatives like Business Intelligence (BI), Business Service Management (BSM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Information Life-cycle Management (ILM) capturing headlines in IT trade publications on a weekly basis, it’s hard to believe IT executives would want to know less about their infrastructure.

What’s valuable about Klinger’s comments is not to focus on the volume of data we should or should not capture, but the point that capturing data without the tools to analyze it easily and accurately is, as he said, an annoyance.

The true value of a CMDB is to make use of the information gathered to offer true visibility into the operational integrity and delivery of business services — dashboards and reporting functions are critical to realizing this goal across the entire IT environment.

What are your thoughts on Klinger and Craig’s comments? Are we capturing too much or too little information, or do we just need to do a better job gaining intelligence from the data we have?