Configuration Management (CM) is an Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) version 2 and an IT Service Management (ITSM) process that tracks all of the individual Configuration Items (CI) in an IT system which may be as simple as a single server, or as complex as the entire IT department. In large organizations a configuration manager may be appointed to oversee and manage the CM process. In ITIL version 3, this process has been renamed as Service Asset and Configuration Management.
A configuration item (CI) is an IT asset or a combination of IT assets that may depend on and/or have relationships with other IT processes. A CI will have attributes which may be hierarchical and relationships that will be assigned by the configuration manager in the CM database.
The fundamental component of CM is the CM database (CMDB) which have the CI information and is used to understand the CI relationships and track their configuration and more
The information in the CMDB is used for five basic activities: