Any recomendations for CMDB that can sync to Archi?

[Alberto]

I have an asset management tool that I've slowly been modifying so that I can export data that fits my archimate models. When I get a new asset, I generate new UUIDs for all the asset components, assign them an archimate concept types, properties, relationships, and once a month I export all data as CSV and import it to Archi and refresh my models. It's a one way Sync since I'm only doing current state with a single source of truth.

Now, here's the rub.  I have found many folks willing to share their own data repositories so that they can be used as data sources, all in an effort to contribute and map (we hope) our current state.

My trusty programmer says a DB with APIs is the way to go, he would just build a piece of middleware or CMDB with a set of rules for each data source and have it spit out CSV files for Archi.  As much as I like the idea of this 'CMDB' to manage the data flows, I have but a faint of an idea of the business/technical requirements for what such thing should be, so before I embark in such endeavor, I wanted to pick the brain of experienced modelers.

I would like to pick an open source tool, but one that can play well with Archi and do two way sync. Then have my trusty programmer do the modifications that needed for our internal data sets.  I just haven't found a good one to start with.

I've tried CMDBuild but no longer supports Archi.  iTOP, iDo-IT seem to have a decent reception but neither talks Archi/Archimate.

Any other ones out there?

[Hervé]

Hi Alberto,

To be honest, I do not know about open source tools that can achieve your aim.

Nevertheless, if you export your models to a database with my plugin, then you can sync components to your BMDB using any ETL (like Talend).

Best regards
Hervé

[Alberto]

Hi Herve
This is our thought as well as my brief research is not panning out suitable existing solutions. CMDBuild seems to have the most potential but with their plugin no longer under maintained (and source code seems to be gone). It looks pretty much coming down to internal dev project unless someone can suggest other tool for me to look into.

[Hervé]

The CMDBuild web site states that REST Services are native in their software. They're not talking about any plugin ...

But as I haven't installed their solution, I cannot guarantee this is really the case.

[Jean-Baptiste Sarrodie]

Hi,

CMDBuild is the best opensource CMDB, period. It is even better than most proprietary CMDB. It is in fact really more than a CMDB, it is a generic purpose record management tool with a metamodel that can be fully configured to suit your needs.

I used it for a long time with a custom metamodel based on TOGAF Content Metamodel and ArchiMate. I even once wrote a post about it. Recently I created a metamoddel based solely on ArchiMate and it works great.

What makes CMDBuild great is that you can easily configure it for several needs, add connector to pull data from other relational databases and can access stored data through webservices, either using its custom API or the (hopefully standard) CMDBf.

That being said...

In your case CMDBuild would make sens if at some point you think people will manage their assets in it or if you have to manage some cross references to link those heterogeneous datasources. But if you only want to collect data without changing them, then I don't see the need to collect data in a central DB, and it would be easier to just export information from each datasources to CSV format that you'll later import in Archi (maybe through command line/CLI).

FWIW, you should be able to call webservices through the jArchi scripting plugin, so if you decide to use CMDBuild, that could be an option.

Regards,

JB