Configuration Management and IBM Maximo
Working with clients over the years, we have seen many levels of configuration management and sadly we have also seen clients with no methodology whatsoever. It can’t be stressed enough the need to know what changes have been made to the system. This need becomes even more important when it is time to upgrade the system.
What is Configuration Management?
“Configuration Management (CM) is a systems engineering process for establishing and maintaining consistency of a product’s performance, functional, and physical attributes with its requirements, design, and operational information throughout its life.” – Wikipedia But for what does that mean for us and Maximo? It means that we need to document what has been changed from the Maximo baseline.
What should be Recorded?
It doesn’t really matter where you document the changes being made, it’s just important that it’s documented and accessible to those who need it. The type of information that should be captured includes:
- What change is being made?
- Who requested the change?
- Why is the change being made? What does the change provide?
- Who is actually making the change?
- What is the date of change?
- Supporting material for the change if applicable, (Process, Policy, Design Document, etc.)
Rolling Back a Change
Another aspect of CM is planning to undo the change if necessary. There will be times that you will make a change in your Development platform and when you update Production the change fails to produce the desired result or may even affect another part of the system. So it’s very important to plan for undoing the change you made.
Conclusion
There are many more aspects to configuration management and pretty big books written about it too, so if you want to learn more there are many resources out there. However, it all comes back to one thing. RECORD ALL CHANGES you make to IBM Maximo and you will be better for it.
