Chapter 3: Change and Configuration Management 47

Configuration Management Relationships

Many of the main benefits of configuration management come from the relationships between the configuration items that are defined in the structure of the configuration management database. Getting these relationships correct is vital for successful configura- tion management.

The relationships grow more complex the more configuration items you have. To see the principle, take a very simple example, with only six configuration items, showing a simple relationship between Exchange hardware and software, as illustrated in Figure 3.2.

Hardware

Server

Printer

Software

Exchange

Server

Hotfix

Figure 3.2

Six Configuration Items and Relationships Between Them

Here the server itself is obviously hardware, but it also represents the software that is to installed on it. These elements depend on each other. If there was no hardware, Exchange would have nothing to be installed on, and if there is no Exchange 2000 software, there is little point in having the hardware.

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Microsoft 1 manual Configuration Management Relationships, Hardware Server Printer Software Exchange Hotfix