CMDB × ITSM — Incidents, Changes, Problems

Definitive questions

• +What table links tasks to CIs?
• +What is change collision detection?
• +How does an incident affect service availability?
• +What is the difference between Business Service and Configuration Item on an incident?

Scenario drills

1. Change approval missed a critical downstream service

   “A DB restart change was approved but broke a business service nobody flagged. How do you prevent it?”

   Approach

   • Enable change collision + service impact — CAB workflow uses cmdb_rel_ci to walk from the DB up to affected services.
   • Make Business Services required on high-risk change categories.
   • Add automated blackout checks against cmdb_ci_service.change_freeze windows.

   new GlideRecord('cmdb_ci_service')
     .addJoinQuery('cmdb_rel_ci','sys_id','parent')
     .addQuery('child', dbCi.sys_id);

   Alternate approach

   Alternate: bolt on Predictive Intelligence 'similar changes' to surface historical incidents linked to the same CI class.

   Pitfall

   Approving DB changes without walking the dependency tree — impact only appears at cutover.