CMDB provides a centralized repository for your assets and support representatives throughout the organization.
It depends on the implementation, but the out-of-the-box product tends to be fixed on the support people. From a linear standpoint, I would like to see a certain number of fields on a table and a related list to describe the support personnel.
You can specify leads and responsible personnel. If there were a related list with the job function responsibility and that person's user ID, it could be a dynamic list instead of a fixed one where we have to create columns on a table. I would like to see that functionality out of the box.
I have used CMDB for five years.
I rate CMDB nine out of 10. ServiceNow products are stable overall.
I think the scalability is excellent because of the way it's implemented. That said, I would like to see tighter integration with Active Directory, so we get automated reports as people join or leave the organization. That is something we can develop, but it would be nice to have that out of the box.
I rate CMDB seven out of 10 for ease of setup. You have to go through discovery to populate your assets and build out the relationships. That's normal. It takes some additional work, and every installation is different.
The initial deployment is pretty quick, but the configuration takes additional time, and you need some buy-in from other departments. That process varies. It might be straightforward, or it can be the roadblock to getting things done correctly.
The setup may involve 10 to 15 people because you may need to reach out to other teams to get the data you need. If you're doing a standard deployment that's simply laying the foundation and you have all the information ahead of time, you could get this done in under a month. That's allowing time to address any issues or necessary configuration changes.
I rate ServiceNow CMDB eight out of 10. The foundation is good, but there's always room for improvement. I think they're addressing the issues, so I'll give them an eight to be on the positive side. CMDB is your foundation. If you get that right, it makes the rest of your ServiceNow deployment go easier.