OK, let's make one thing clear: I really like the IT Skeptic's site; unlike too much ITIL twaddle, he is making us all think harder. The world needs contrarians.
However, Mr. Skeptic, you've made a number of questionable assertions. My next few posts will be devoted to examining your arguments.
Let's start tonight with your critique of Dennis Drogseth. You unfavorably quote him:
"And now this, the last straw: from EMA, analysts who should know better."
"The point is the CMDB is not a 'thing', it's a landscape, it's a system," said Dennis Drogseth, VP of EMA. "So, the CMDB is exactly that political-cultural process of getting organizations to define a trusted source of information for a given environment and to share that info in a consistent way with parts of the organization." [ ITSM-Watch August 3, 2006 ]
"No it isn’t. Leave it alone. It’s a thing."
I disagree. The reification of "CMDB" as a thing is in fact one of the biggest problems in the ITIL landscape. As a "thing" it is unmanageable and impossible, a prematurely-defined technical solution to a poorly understood problem - exactly the point of many of your posts!
In fact, what is needed is an enterprise architecture for IT - one in which a specific CMDB may be central, but only as first among equals in an overall ecosystem of tools to manage the IT value chain.
More later.
-Charlie
