Standard verticalizations

CMDBuild READY2USE Logo

Application already configured for the IT Governance management, ITIL compliant


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Application already configured for the Property and Facility Management and Maintenance Processes

CMDBuild Newsletter n. 32

July 2012

CMDBuild is a configurable web application to model and manage a database containing assets (CMDB stands for "Configuration and Management Data Base") and handle related workflow operations.

CMDBuild is promoted by the Municipality of Udine and developed by Tecnoteca srl.

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CMDBuild 2.0 version incoming

We are pleased to announce that that within August the CMDBuild 2.0 version will be released.

As predicted CMDBuild will include:

  • a substantial editing in the workflow system, with an upgrade to Together Workflow Server 4.4, the adoption of the XPDL 2.0 standard, support for native parallelism in the flow through CMDBuild, important performance improvement
  • a new possibility of configuring dashboards, based on native related functionalities of Ext JS, which are useful for a graphic and easy-to-read representation of indicators and statistical data, worked out with the study of CMDB information (datacards and processes)
  • introduction of new parameters for the configuration of a new simplified version of the CMDBuild user interface (which can be used as an alternative to external portlets).

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How to organize the migration

As predicted, new working mechanisms of the CMDBuild 2.0 workflow, based on Together Workflow Server 4.4 and XPDL 2.0, imply the lost of backward compatibility with the workflows developed up to the present day.

In order to make the shift to the new 2.0 version easier, we forecast the development of an external tool for the partial automatic migration to the new format, delegating the manual treating of more complex operations to the “How-To” provided documents, since they would otherwise require very articulated automation.

In order to improve the software, we decided recently to keep in CMDBuild 2.0 the double possibility of working (alternatively) both with Together Workflow Server 2.3 (the current version used in CMDBuild 1.5, based on XPDL 1.0) and the new version 4.4 (based on XPDL 2.0).

This will delay the release of the tool some weeks more. However at this point the tool will not be a matter of urgency.

So the adopted solution will allow:

  • new users to work right from the beginning with the new Together Workflow Server 4.4 and the new functionalities developed in CMDBuild (native parallelism)
  • old users to split the migration into two steps:
    1. to activate right from the beginning the 2.0 version in order to use the new dashboards, by keeping the Together Workflow Server 2.3 active (but with quite improved performances)
    2. to switch to Together Workflow Server 4.4 only after the test of the new environmental test instance, when the conversion tool is available.

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CMDBuild in the field

During the last weeks a pilot project has been started to implement a CMDB system by CSI (Centro di Ateneo per i Servizi Informativi) of the University of Naples.

The University chose CMDBuild as applicative platform and requested to Tecnoteca some first support services.

In view of activities carried out up to now, a CMDBuild personalized “appliance” has been arranged according to the standards of CSI, the data model has been projected and configured and some pre-existing files have been imported.

This project is oriented to the ITIL Service Catalogue Management.  The activities will be completed within the end of this year and any additional developments will be then valued.


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Starting a BIM research project (Building Information Modeling)

The same mechanisms, achieved in CMDBuild for the IT assets management, can be applied with equal profit to the house assets management, understood both as simple housing inventory (buildings, plants, etc) and management of maintenance and of other vertical support activities.

Also in the buildings and real estates management the “lifecycle management” concept has had a huge strategic importance for such a long time, that it has prompted the BIM paradigm (Building Information Modeling) and its vast literature.

BIM is a solution – at first conceptual and then technological – whose aim is the supporting of the architectural design procedure, from the initial idea to the building of a structure, its use and maintenance and its demolition at the end of its life cycle.

BIM solutions are rapidly acquiring a great importance, starting from North Europe and USA, since their considerable economic advantages (high savings in the global process) were recognized, as well as the ability to support efficiently additional needs, which are unavoidable, such as energy, safety, accessibility management.

At the beginning of the year, Tecnoteca presented a R&D project in order to render CMDBuild BIM-compliant by:

  • using a system of representation of structural, topological and functional aspects of buildings and civil / industrial plants, based on open standards and supported by trading software (at the moment it has been identified IFC - Industry Foundation Classes)
  • integrating a file repository in the identified standard format and synchronizing that information which is supposed to be treated analytically in CMDB
  • designing and developing a display based on web browser which allows the complete “navigation” in the building, with reference of objects and correlations registered in CMDB
The project has been funded with support from Friuli-Venezia Giulia Region. In the project have been involved also professors and researchers of the University of Udine.

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New German and Japanese localizations

CMDBuild 2.0 will include the new German and Japanese localizations.

German localization has been achieved by Marta Romanelli (cooperating with Tecnoteca), the Japanese one by Shoji Seki from Osaka.

The two localizations add to the other seven already available: Italian, English, Spanish, Serbian, French, Russian, Brazilian-Portuguese.

We hope that this will increase the CMDBuild diffusion in Japanese- and German-speaking countries (Germany is already in the “Top Ten” of the downloads of the application from the repository Sourceforge).