Skip to main content
Storage Management in Configuration Management Database

Storage Management in Configuration Management Database

$300.00
Who trusts this:
Trusted by professionals in 160+ countries
Your guarantee:
30-day money-back guarantee — no questions asked
How you learn:
Self-paced • Lifetime updates
When you get access:
Course access is prepared after purchase and delivered via email
Toolkit Included:
Includes a practical, ready-to-use toolkit containing implementation templates, worksheets, checklists, and decision-support materials used to accelerate real-world application and reduce setup time.
Adding to cart… The item has been added

This curriculum spans the full lifecycle of storage configuration management, equivalent in depth to a multi-workshop program co-developed with enterprise storage and CMDB governance teams, covering policy, tooling, and cross-functional workflows across hybrid environments.

Module 1: Defining Scope and Ownership of Configuration Items in Storage Infrastructure

  • Determine which storage components (SAN, NAS, object storage, backup systems) are tracked as Configuration Items (CIs) based on business impact and change frequency.
  • Establish ownership boundaries between storage teams, cloud operations, and database administrators for hybrid storage environments.
  • Define CI granularity: whether to model individual LUNs, storage pools, or entire arrays based on operational accountability.
  • Resolve conflicts between network and storage teams over port-channel and VLAN CIs that support storage traffic.
  • Implement rules for decommissioning retired storage arrays and archiving associated CIs without losing historical audit trails.
  • Integrate discovery tools to auto-identify storage endpoints while applying manual validation rules to prevent CI sprawl.
  • Map storage replication relationships (synchronous/asynchronous) as CI dependencies for impact analysis during outages.
  • Decide whether virtual storage controllers in cloud environments (e.g., AWS FSx, Azure NetApp Files) are modeled as distinct CIs or part of cloud service records.

Module 2: Data Modeling and Schema Design for Storage CIs

  • Extend the CMDB schema to include storage-specific attributes such as RAID level, IOPS capacity, latency thresholds, and replication status.
  • Define custom classes for storage arrays, disk shelves, and HBAs that align with vendor data models but remain abstracted for cross-platform reporting.
  • Implement inheritance rules so child CIs (e.g., LUNs) inherit location and support group from parent storage systems unless overridden.
  • Design data normalization strategies to avoid duplication when storage systems serve multiple business applications.
  • Enforce mandatory fields for storage CIs such as support contract ID, end-of-support date, and encryption status.
  • Model multi-tenancy in shared storage systems by linking CIs to business units or cost centers without creating redundant records.
  • Define lifecycle states (planned, in production, under maintenance, retired) and transition workflows specific to storage hardware.
  • Integrate storage capacity tiers (hot, cold, archive) into CI classification to support tiered service level agreements.

Module 3: Integration of Discovery and Dependency Mapping Tools

  • Configure agentless discovery tools to scan storage subnets using SNMP, SSH, and vendor APIs while minimizing performance impact on production arrays.
  • Validate discovered storage CIs against authoritative sources such as vendor support portals and procurement systems.
  • Suppress discovery of transient or test storage systems using IP range filters and naming conventions.
  • Map host-to-storage dependencies via HBA WWNs and zone configurations in the fabric layer for accurate impact analysis.
  • Resolve discrepancies between discovered storage capacity and manually entered CMDB records through reconciliation workflows.
  • Implement delta-based synchronization to update only changed attributes (e.g., free space, status) instead of full CI refreshes.
  • Handle authentication credential rotation for storage arrays in discovery tools without interrupting data collection.
  • Correlate storage performance metrics from monitoring tools with CI records to enrich incident management context.

Module 4: Change Management and Approval Workflows for Storage Infrastructure

  • Define change templates for common storage operations such as LUN provisioning, volume resizing, and firmware upgrades.
  • Integrate storage change requests with the CMDB to auto-populate affected CIs and required approvals based on impact scope.
  • Enforce pre-change CI snapshots to enable rollback verification and audit compliance.
  • Route high-impact storage changes (e.g., array firmware updates) through CAB with storage engineering and application owners.
  • Link emergency storage changes to post-implementation reviews and CMDB cleanup tasks to prevent configuration drift.
  • Automate backfill of post-implementation details (e.g., new disk layout, updated capacity) into CMDB after change closure.
  • Track storage-related change failure rates to identify recurring issues with specific array models or configuration patterns.
  • Enforce mandatory documentation of storage configuration backups taken prior to any change.

Module 5: Data Quality, Reconciliation, and Audit Compliance

  • Establish reconciliation cycles between CMDB, asset management, and financial systems for storage hardware procurement and disposal.
  • Define tolerance thresholds for storage capacity discrepancies between CMDB and monitoring tools before triggering data correction.
  • Implement automated data quality scoring for storage CIs based on completeness, timeliness, and source reliability.
  • Conduct quarterly audits of storage CI ownership and support group assignments to reflect organizational changes.
  • Generate compliance reports for storage encryption status, replication configurations, and data retention policies from CMDB data.
  • Use checksums or configuration hashes to detect unauthorized changes to storage array settings between audit cycles.
  • Flag stale CIs where no discovery or change activity has occurred within a defined period for validation or retirement.
  • Integrate external regulatory requirements (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA) into storage CI tagging and reporting workflows.

Module 6: Incident and Problem Management Integration

  • Automatically link storage-related incidents to affected CIs (e.g., failed HBA, degraded RAID) for accurate impact assessment.
  • Use CI dependency maps to identify all applications relying on a storage volume during incident triage.
  • Populate incident records with historical change data for the affected storage CI to accelerate root cause analysis.
  • Trigger automated notifications to storage engineers when multiple incidents reference the same storage array within a time window.
  • Link recurring storage performance issues to problem records and track known error documentation in the CMDB.
  • Enrich incident diagnostics with CMDB-stored configuration baselines for comparison against current state.
  • Ensure incident resolution updates include confirmation of CMDB accuracy for changed storage configurations.
  • Map storage incident SLAs to CI criticality levels derived from business service dependencies.

Module 7: Capacity and Performance Management Using CMDB Data

  • Aggregate CMDB storage CI data to generate capacity forecasts by tier, location, and business unit.
  • Correlate CMDB configuration data with performance monitoring tools to identify under-provisioned or over-allocated volumes.
  • Model the impact of proposed storage consolidations on existing CI relationships and service dependencies.
  • Use historical CMDB change data to predict growth rates for specific storage arrays or platforms.
  • Identify obsolete storage configurations (e.g., RAID 5 on SSD arrays) through policy-based queries on CI attributes.
  • Support chargeback/showback reporting by extracting storage allocation and utilization data from the CMDB.
  • Track storage efficiency features (deduplication, compression) in CIs to assess actual usable capacity versus raw provisioned.
  • Integrate CMDB data into automation workflows for proactive volume expansion before capacity thresholds are breached.

Module 8: Governance, Roles, and Access Control in the Storage CMDB

  • Define role-based access controls for storage CIs to restrict edit rights to storage engineering teams while allowing read access to application owners.
  • Implement approval workflows for modifications to high-criticality storage CIs such as core arrays or replication targets.
  • Log all modifications to storage CI records for forensic analysis and SOX compliance requirements.
  • Establish data stewardship roles responsible for validating storage CI accuracy in each business region or data center.
  • Enforce separation of duties between personnel who provision storage and those who update CMDB records.
  • Integrate CMDB access policies with enterprise identity providers (e.g., Active Directory, SSO) for consistent authentication.
  • Define escalation paths for unresolved CMDB data conflicts involving storage configurations.
  • Conduct access reviews quarterly to remove obsolete permissions for departed or reassigned storage personnel.

Module 9: Automation and Orchestration of Storage CI Lifecycle

  • Automate CI creation in the CMDB upon successful provisioning of storage volumes via orchestration platforms (e.g., Ansible, Terraform).
  • Trigger decommission workflows that update CI status, notify stakeholders, and schedule final backups when storage is retired.
  • Integrate CMDB updates into storage migration playbooks to reflect new locations, paths, and dependencies.
  • Use CI data to generate pre-validation checks before executing storage failover or disaster recovery drills.
  • Develop scripts to bulk-update storage CI attributes during data center consolidations or vendor transitions.
  • Enforce policy compliance by blocking storage provisioning requests that fail to include required CMDB metadata.
  • Sync CMDB with backup management systems to ensure backup jobs are mapped to current storage configurations.
  • Implement event-driven updates to CIs when storage monitoring tools detect configuration drift or hardware failures.
!