Managing Configuration Items › Versioning

Versioning

Versioning promotes control over the IT infrastructure by tracking and managing the life cycles of all the CIs that make up the authorized state of the CMDB. Versioning provides the following functions to control the IT infrastructure:

• Create snapshots, which are recorded automatically whenever a change is made to the value of any CI attribute. For example, when the memory size of a computer is modified, a snapshot is created that records the complete state of that hardware CI. Versioning can display the snapshot, indicate which CI attributes have changed, and compare it against all other historical snapshots of that CI. This information is critical when you want to understand the impact of changes on the availability and performance of a CI.
• Create milestones. Milestones are special-purpose snapshots that are recorded with a user-defined label, such as First Day of Production or January Baseline. Such labels can help find specific snapshots more quickly.
• Compare a CI to another CI that acts as a standard. Any CI can be used as a standard for comparison purposes, but we recommend that you dedicate specific CIs for the purpose of acting as Standard CIs. A Standard CI lets you define a standard configuration to which other operational CIs in the same family can be compared. For example, an organization can decide to define Server Large as a Standard CI to define the attribute values that define this type of server. The Standard CI for a family can be made an attribute of an operational CI in that family, which lets you compare the current state or any historical state of a CI to its associated standard configuration. Like other comparisons, you can print this information or export it as a comma-delimited file.

  Whereas milestones can act as unshared, unchangeable baselines, Standard CIs provide shared, dynamic baselines for your CIs.

  Important! A Standard CI must never contain values for any attribute that is used for CI reconciliation.

Versioning includes the following features:

• Automatic capture of all CI modifications
• Snapshots of a CI at any time based on date or attribute changes
• Various levels of display including detailed Log, Basic, and Advanced views
• Multiple attribute comparisons with other snapshots, user-defined milestones, or a Standard CI
• Automatic snapshots whenever CA Service Desk Manager change tickets change states
• Advanced filtering and comparison with Print and CSV Export support

More information:

Uses of Versioning

Shared Asset and CI Audit Trail Records

Versioning Terminology

Sources of Versioning Data

CA SDM Change Management Integration

CA APM Integration

CI Versioning Management

CA SDM Change Management