Anyone who has ventured down the path of aggregating and rationalizing the contents of disparate data stores knows firsthand that, as difficult as the challenge will be to assemble the data into actionable information, it sometimes pales in comparison with the effort it will take to maintain the desired level of quality
The CMS is not a luxury and is quickly becoming essential to your survival. Doing nothing is no longer an option. You must carefully document and then communicate the “Confidence Level” you have of the Configuration Item (CI) data you are sharing. You must also provide a vehicle for the consumers of the CI data to validate, research, improve and report anomalies. You need an anomaly or “Data Discrepancy” process for them to use.
For the complete story, please follow the link below to the itSMF USA website
http://newsmanager.commpartners.com/itsmf/issues/2009-12-21/5.html