Greg
I think that Rob's points are pretty good: if you look at how ITIL evolved, the CMDB was a concept comparable to a DB that has all of the records for running a business, but no one would consider that such a beast exists. The CMDB product vendors don't seem to understand this, but their customers don't seem to get it either.
I've seen CMDB projects that would require more people managing the data and the data model in the CMDB than running the systems. There are all sorts of philosophical problems with trying to produce a bottom up view of what the vendors identify as CIs (see how LMAX works uses Continuous Delivery). For the most part a more tractable approach is to automate the building of the apps from the ground up, so that you can at least reliably build your production systems.
A sensible CI for 2011 would be, say, 'Cloud Infrastructure', RTO would be driven by an application redeployment and failover model, rather than relying on a BCP/DR process that's only tested when it's needed, capacity planning becomes a budgeting exercise that business can actually engage in, etc.
In fact, if the capex costs of infrastructure are removed, and the gaps (eg for billing) are filled, much of the need for ITIL evaporates. The focus on service levels is still crucial, but a simpler IT organisation and fewer separations of concern make it easier to engage the business in meaningful discussions, where the app owners can demonstrate what's possible and the business does not feel like it's dealing with an group that's hiding behind jargon.
Tim
Tim
