BMC Helix CMDB Reviews

The Atrium CMDB is where you would store all your configuration items, whether they're physical or logical. For example, server PCs, routers, switches, and other network devices, as well as the software installed on these servers or devices. It also involves maintaining relationships between these items. 

On top of that, you build what we call the service model. You define a service and relate all the CIs to that service. This helps in understanding the organization's service structure and is useful in case of incidents or issues.

On the ITSM side, since CMDB is at the core of ITSM, let's say there's an incident on a certain device. With CMDB, you would know which service is impacted and even which users are impacted. This modeling of the CMDB and CI, along with the actual inventory, extends to what is known as IT asset management or the broader CMDB (Configuration Management Database).

The main feature is the relational model database, where you define relationships between CIs. Being able to establish CI relationships and building a service model is a key aspect of CMDB. 

Additionally, the traditional features of asset management, such as tracking assets through attributes, location, and ownership (both organizational and individual), are also part of it. On top of these, the CI model, which handles relationships and service models, is pivotal.

Recently, improvements have been more focused on the interface side. The core code itself is stable. For instance, there's been a transition from using Flash on the interface to more modern external pages, resulting in a more user-friendly and powerful interface.

The customer service and support are good. 

Positive

I would rate my experience with the initial setup an eight out of ten, where one is the most difficult, and ten is easy to set up. 

If it's out of the box with just installation, then it time taken for deployment depends. One of the features is the extended model that comes with predefined classes to store devices or CIs, it's also extendable. For example, out of the box, it might not include classes to store network elements for telco companies. However, you can extend the model by adding new classes to accommodate different types of devices.

We do maintain the product. Normally, for CMDB and ITSM, just one admin for operational tasks would suffice.

ServiceNow is a fully cloud-based tool, similar to Salesforce for ITSM. It's very flexible and entirely cloud-driven. 

BMC, on the other hand, has been in the market for more than 30 years now and has made the transition to the cloud more recently. Their ITSM tool, including the CMDB, can be installed in containers like AWS or Azure and maintained there.

BMC Atrium CMDB is quite powerful. There's nothing specific in BMC CMDB that's not in other CMDBs. It's a robust tool.

Overall, I would rate the product an eight out of ten. 

We use the product to manage all application and data configurations. It includes servers, hardware components, firewalls, Windows connections, and other assets. We classify these assets under CIs and utilize them based on customer requirements while creating tickets. Additionally, we can analyze data using the product categorization link.

CMDB has the best feature for people association. Some customers require specific updates or files from various systems, and we want to allow only certain users to access the CIs. With this feature, we can easily assign and relay these CIs to our users, ensuring they have the necessary information. It's a highly useful and advanced feature. Along with it, the rules functionality makes it easier to classify data for different groups.

One area for improvement for the product is related to the data we load. Sometimes, we use third-party or discovery tools to gather data, which ends up in the same database. There can be instances where duplicate records are created. While the solution offers general options to remove duplicates, it is limited to specific fields. There could be a provision in the back end to ensure unique collections and avoid duplicate services.

I have been using BMC Atrium CMDB as a customer for 14 years.

I rate the product's stability an eight out of ten.

The number of CMDB users can vary significantly. In one organization, we have 100 users; in another, there are as few as ten or as many as 200 users. It all depends on the specific context and requirements of each organization. The system can handle multi-dimensional enrollment and load-balancing concepts efficiently. I rate its scalability an eight out of ten.

I contacted the product's technical support team when encountering challenges like breakage, bugs, and other issues. They were responsive and always provided support. I had a good experience working with them.

The initial setup was straightforward. When we clearly understand how it works, it becomes an interesting model we can work on and fix issues. The system's heavy implementation should take at least an hour, including installation and setup. The deployment time may vary depending on the amount of data involved.

CMDB is a little expensive compared to ServiceNow.

Compared to ServiceNow, CMDB is better in terms of consistent remedy and a wide range of features for enrollment and usage.

Every customer should consider using CMDB for their organization. I rate it an eight out of ten.

BMC Atrium CMDB is a configuration management database. It's the core of the ITSM system. All changes, incidents, and problems must be related to an actual CI, which can be a network element, server, or cell. When you first install any of the ITSM systems, you start with installing the BMC Atrium CMDB and then you install all the ITM suites on top of the CMDB.

The most valuable features of BMC Atrium CMDB are its ease to build new classes. For example, let's say there are types of CIs or efforts that do not exist in BMC Atrium CMDB. You can create your own and their relationship to existing classes.

BMC Atrium CMDB could improve if they had a cloud version and made the interface better.

I have been using BMC Atrium CMDB for approximately 10 years.

The integration through BMC Atrium CMDB sometimes is heavy when updating the CMDB. It might take extra time when you run any kind of integration to receive CI updates or when they are created.

BMC Atrium CMDB is scalable.

We have many people working on the CIs on the front end of the solution.

The support from BMC Atrium CMDB is good, they are helpful.

The initial setup of BMC Atrium CMDB is straightforward.

A couple of technicians can support the administration side of BMC Atrium CMDB. We have one configuration manager and one overall BMC Atrium CMDB manager for support.

I rate BMC Atrium CMDB a ten out of ten.

We use this solution to monitor and maintain service modelling and assets throughout the full life-cycle.

This solution makes it easy for us to access data, and seamlessly integrates with all ITSM as well as the monitoring parts.

This product also gives a centralized view on where assets are causing issues, or need to be upgraded. It allows us a holistic view of all the assets, and the level of usage for each.

We would like the service modelling functionality of this solution to be improved.

We would also like a more efficient impact analysis feature to be developed for this product; as present it takes a lot of time to identify the risk and its impact.

We have been using this solution for almost 10 years.

This is a stable solution, in our experience.

We have found this to be a scalable product.

We switched to this solution because of its 360 view of the assets lane. We can see up to date information on how many tickets were generated, how many issues occurred, how many changes took place, etc.

This solution is easy to implement, and the deployment takes two to three hours.

We would advise organizations to prepare the foundations of their data, and how they would like to see it before implementing this software. This will ensure that the full benefit of the product is realized.

We would rate this solution a 10 out of 10.

We use this to track assets in our environment to use for reporting and ticketing. This includes workstations, network devices, modeled applications, and servers: on-premise and in the cloud.

This solution has improved our tracking. Over the years, we have progressed to have close to a real-time up-to-date view into the assets in our environment. We integrated with Discovery and SCCM products to assist with this as well.

Precedence Rules: Able to have attributes weighed in each of the datasets where the data is synchronized.

Normalization Rules: Able to fix misspellings or product names that have version information in the name before inserting into the golden dataset.

Looking for a more streamlined interface; one that matches the other parts of the BMC Remedy product line:

• Coloring
• Menus
• A basic similarity between user interfaces, not one that seems so different from the others.

Atrium CMDB is a great solution for having all your networks mapped into it. It underpins the functionality of change, incident, problem management, and asset management modules.

It allows me to easily manage my data: Cleanse, load, and report on it. It is a very comprehensive tool for Configuration Management.

• Atrium Integrator
• Impact simulator
• Reconciliation
• ADDM is an added bonus. 

Atrium Integrator allows me to manage my data, with regular updates, etc. and integrate with multiple systems.

I think they have already included what I was going to ask for. I am just waiting for the new release with the new enhanced UI.