The heart of any CMDB is configuration information (CI), and here is where Samantha excels. Fashioned from real situations by infrastructure professionals, the product has a robust mix of assets tailored for the Data Center.

Data domains include: physical servers, virtual servers, routers, switches, storage arrays, tape devices, circuits, IP addresses, DNS addresses, network interfaces, shared applications, desktop software, databases, individuals, client groups, departments, VIPs, cell phones, printers, certificates and a host of other configuration items that IT departments manage.

Configuration attributes include manufacturer, model number, serial number, RAM, CPU speed, IOS version level, OS, patch level, purchase date, purchase amount, data center rack, power supply connection, software version number, and over 300 other attributes.

Know the relationships too. Drill-down the hierarchy of application suites or physical hardware relationships. Start from the site or Data Center, and drill inward. Start from a Client Group, and see what applications they use. Or start from a server or desktop computer, and discover what applications they support.

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Change Management                                                                

Simply put, good IT departments manage their changes. Samantha provides the workflow, tracking and notifications to make your environment more predictable.

Workflow supports Proposed, Approved, Scheduled, Cancelled, Backed-out, Completed and Rated changes. Get e-mail notifications along the way, as changes move from state to state. Affected customers can also automatically receive notifications on changes that affect them. Include flags for Urgent changes, self-approved changes and changes outside of predefined change windows. Schedule planned maintenance and recurring changes with a single stroke.

Samantha's change management is uniquely tied to Configuration Management. Change histories are automatically tied to the underlying asset being changed. A simply click shows all the changes for that device, proposed, completed and cancelled. When something goes wrong, finally, you can have a way to see, "what changed last".

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Incident Management                                                                  

What went down last - do you even know? You lose credibility if you cannot show when downtime occurred in the environment, or more importantly, how well you keep systems up.

Track system downtime. Just like change management, your incidents in Samantha are tied to its related configuration item. Track downtime durations, reporting when failures occurred and how and when they were resolved. Assign outage priorities, link the outage to which Client Groups were affected, and document the underlying source of the problem.

As your team matures, track and show your Mean Time to Repair equipment failures and the Mean Time Between Failures. Positive trends here are signs of a mature IT organization.

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Financial Management                                                                   

Cost control is within the DNA of every IT department. Here, recurring financial obligations make-up 10 - 50% of most technology budgets.

Track your maintenance agreements, leases and software licenses. Know when they expire, how much they cost, and how many of each you have. Get e-mail notifications in advance of expirations, or within time to cancel the agreement before it automatically renews. See a 12-month forward view of your recurring obligations to help your budgeting process.

Just like the other Samantha modules, your finances are tied to their underlying assets. See, on a device basis, whether its covered under maintenance, has had a recent service expense, and track its total cost of ownership (TCO).

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Controls                                                                    

When was the last time you deleted obsolete active directory accounts, conducted an intrusion penetration test, or checked that the Guest account is disabled?

Preventive maintenance should be performed as often as you can. But things happen and time isn't always available to get everything done as it should. Often, you don't know when a preventive step was done last. Do you know when you plan to do the test next, and when you last tested your environment, did it pass or fail?

Here Samantha helps too. Receive e-mail alerts when its time to perform another test, execute a Control, or perform preventive maintenance. Log your success or failure. Develop a track-record for how well you are or are not proactively managing your environment. Track your success and prove your effectiveness.

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