CMDBuild newsletter n. 39

September 2013

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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Work in progress

We have defined in recent weeks the list of implementations that will be included in the next 2.2 version, whose release has been scheduled for February-March 2014.

The new version will include the unified management of different automatic activities and the integration of BIM capabilities.

Meanwhile we are also working on some minor activities on version 2.1 and we'll release in the next days an intermediate 2.1.5 version that will fix some bugs and extend some features (manage permissions on columns subsets, in reading or writing modes).

For more information please refer to the roadmap of the CMDBuild project, which was recently updated.

We are finally moving on with the new openMAINT product, dedicated to Facility Management, working on its technical configuration and on the preparation of web channels required for its presentation.

The next 2.2 version

The new version's main objective will be to simplify the configuration of some automated tasks that can be scheduled in the system through the standard user interface of the application.

These activities will be started according to some system events, including:

• receiving of an email with a specific pattern
• occurring of specific situations on CMDBuild data (a specific date on a card or process, overcoming of a SLA in a process, etc.)
• performing of specific operations on CMDB (new card, change an attribute of a card, etc.)

Upon the occurrence of any of the events described above you can schedule to send notification mails or start a workflow.

You can also configure a simple Connector using a wizard to synchronize data from external systems (Wizard Connector).

The activities described above will be managed within a Task Manager that will create new "jobs", suspend and restart "jobs" already created, delete "jobs" no longer needed.

Also, version 2.2 will include the first release of new features to support BIM methodologies, that will allow you to:

• interoperate with other BIM-compliant applications specialized in the management, at different stages, of the life cycle of a building (lifecycle management)
• synchronize the standard exchange formats (IFC) with information and correlations handled in the CMDB
• display 3D BIM models in the same web interface used for the base application.

"openMAINT"

In the coming weeks we will release the beta version of openMAINT, a new open source product based on CMDBuild and dedicated to the Facility Management & Maintenance.

openMAINT has been designed for the management and maintenance of assets for civil use, structures and industrial equipment, schools and hospitals.

It will handle the inventory of areas and maintenance objects (on buildings models, three-dimensional or two-dimensional), maintenance jobs on failures and programmed, the administrative tasks (from order to the receipt of suppliers' material) and economic tasks (budget, contracts, cost centers), the activities timetable, etc.

openMAINT will be downloadable and "ready for use", thanks to a standard package - that will include a data model, workflow, reporting and dashboards - prepared by our experts.

openMAINT incorporates some BIM extensions that can interoperate with the most popular 3D architectural design tools on the market.

A first beta version will be available before the end of the year, and it will be available on SourceForge and on the project site www.openmaint.org. The stable version will be released in the first quarter of 2014, along with CMDBuild 2.2.

To keep in touch, follow us on twitter or join the Linkedin group dedicated to the project.

CMDBuild in action

The CMDBuild diffusion grows more and more and now we have reached the 2,000 downloads per month on SourceForge, the specialised repository for the management of open source projects.

Among users who require technical support for the configuration and management of CMDBuild this month we announce TLRZ.

TLRZ (Thueringer LandesRechenZentrum) is a data center that provides services to the public administrations of the Federal State of Thuringia, in central Germany.

Initially CMDBuild was chosen to replace an existing asset management solution.

It was important that the new solution could offer a high flexibility and extensibility, and would easily integrate other data sources.

CMDBuild is used today as a new asset management system and it is also used to aggregate data from various sources (e.g. the management of virtual servers and the book inventory).

With the growing number of managed CI and related data sources, this solution is becoming very important to support the ITIL processes used in TLRZ.

Localization and documentation

In addition to the ten already available localizations, CMDBuild now includes also the Vietnamese and Croatian localizations.

The contributors are respectively Trong Nguyen and Tomislav Perić.

With CMDBuild 2.2 we will release also a new manual, called Connectors Manual, that describes the two connectors available (Basic and Advanced) and the third we're developing right now (Connector Wizard).

The manual is currently in draft version, both in English and in Italian languages.