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How to Improve Your APM Deployment with CMDB

Ramy Hassanein

In a perfect world, deployments would always go as planned – however in the world of IT we all know that is not the case. There's a long list of reasons why Application Performance Management (APM) deployments might fail. Some reasons can be aligned to people, others to process and finally some to product.

Today's applications are no longer simple or static in nature. Applications now cover everything from mobile to mainframe and can reside within your datacenter to the cloud as well as everything in between. With that, many questions start to arise:

How do we know what to manage?

How do we determine what the application is made of?

Do we need to deploy an agent?

If so, what kind of agent is needed?

These are all great questions and probably only a handful of examples, but the first task that needs to be addressed is prioritizing applications along with their impact on the business. Higher priority applications are the ones you need to invoke management on first and where detailed transactions coupled with customer experience matter the most. Once you have your "Hit List" the next step is to look under the hood and determine what makes up these applications.

Enter the Configuration Management Database

That is where the Configuration Management Database (CMDB) comes into play. Organizations have spent a tremendous amount of time and resources properly building out and furthermore keeping their CMDB, CIs & relationships accurate. Multiple sources that are designated as Metadata Repositories (MDRs) provide a lot of information to the CMDB so that it becomes the single source of truth within an organizations. So why not leverage all that hard work and precise data?

Within the CMDB and simply by taking a look at the visualizer service map of a particular service you can determine:

1. Who consumes the service>

2. What OS & Servers host the service?

3. What platform is used (eg. Java, .NET…)?

4. What datacenter?

5. Does Production deployment of this app looks like UAT or Test or QA?

And the list goes on.

Leveraging CMDB Can Help You Get Out of Reactive Mode

Historically APM and ITIL have always been a perfect match. It's not just about getting out of reactive mode anymore, but the union is so much more than just password resets or outages and application support. With the focus on continual process improvement, APM can leverage ITIL to help monitor Service Level Agreements (SLAs) metrics which works hand in hand with Service Support and Service Lifecycle. Typically, when we think of this harmonious integration we forget to include the CMDB, and just think about traditional ticket life cycles and MTTR.

When new changes happen in an organization, the first place that should know about it is the Service Desk and the CMDB updated accordingly.

Therefore, a great tool to leverage during any phase of an APM deployment would be your CMBD and its service maps. It can help determine where and what is needed to make sure you are managing your applications correctly with all its components. Whether in the beginning phases of an initial deployment of APM or expanding deployments of agents within an organization, you can use the CMDB's service views to assist. This can even help break down silos that might exist in larger organizations and get APM out of isolation.

Ramy Hassanein is Sr. Principal Consultant at CA Technologies.

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How to Improve Your APM Deployment with CMDB

Ramy Hassanein

In a perfect world, deployments would always go as planned – however in the world of IT we all know that is not the case. There's a long list of reasons why Application Performance Management (APM) deployments might fail. Some reasons can be aligned to people, others to process and finally some to product.

Today's applications are no longer simple or static in nature. Applications now cover everything from mobile to mainframe and can reside within your datacenter to the cloud as well as everything in between. With that, many questions start to arise:

How do we know what to manage?

How do we determine what the application is made of?

Do we need to deploy an agent?

If so, what kind of agent is needed?

These are all great questions and probably only a handful of examples, but the first task that needs to be addressed is prioritizing applications along with their impact on the business. Higher priority applications are the ones you need to invoke management on first and where detailed transactions coupled with customer experience matter the most. Once you have your "Hit List" the next step is to look under the hood and determine what makes up these applications.

Enter the Configuration Management Database

That is where the Configuration Management Database (CMDB) comes into play. Organizations have spent a tremendous amount of time and resources properly building out and furthermore keeping their CMDB, CIs & relationships accurate. Multiple sources that are designated as Metadata Repositories (MDRs) provide a lot of information to the CMDB so that it becomes the single source of truth within an organizations. So why not leverage all that hard work and precise data?

Within the CMDB and simply by taking a look at the visualizer service map of a particular service you can determine:

1. Who consumes the service>

2. What OS & Servers host the service?

3. What platform is used (eg. Java, .NET…)?

4. What datacenter?

5. Does Production deployment of this app looks like UAT or Test or QA?

And the list goes on.

Leveraging CMDB Can Help You Get Out of Reactive Mode

Historically APM and ITIL have always been a perfect match. It's not just about getting out of reactive mode anymore, but the union is so much more than just password resets or outages and application support. With the focus on continual process improvement, APM can leverage ITIL to help monitor Service Level Agreements (SLAs) metrics which works hand in hand with Service Support and Service Lifecycle. Typically, when we think of this harmonious integration we forget to include the CMDB, and just think about traditional ticket life cycles and MTTR.

When new changes happen in an organization, the first place that should know about it is the Service Desk and the CMDB updated accordingly.

Therefore, a great tool to leverage during any phase of an APM deployment would be your CMBD and its service maps. It can help determine where and what is needed to make sure you are managing your applications correctly with all its components. Whether in the beginning phases of an initial deployment of APM or expanding deployments of agents within an organization, you can use the CMDB's service views to assist. This can even help break down silos that might exist in larger organizations and get APM out of isolation.

Ramy Hassanein is Sr. Principal Consultant at CA Technologies.

Hot Topics

The Latest

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

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Cloudbrink's Personal SASE services provide last-mile acceleration and reduction in latency

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

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Broadcom

From growing reliance on FinOps teams to the increasing attention on artificial intelligence (AI), and software licensing, the Flexera 2025 State of the Cloud Report digs into how organizations are improving cloud spend efficiency, while tackling the complexities of emerging technologies ...

Today, organizations are generating and processing more data than ever before. From training AI models to running complex analytics, massive datasets have become the backbone of innovation. However, as businesses embrace the cloud for its scalability and flexibility, a new challenge arises: managing the soaring costs of storing and processing this data ...