Much of what determines how our digital working environment functions is invisible. Beneath the surface are system dependencies, information flows and technical relationships that affect everything from incident management and change to automation and AI. With an accurate CMDB and automated discovery, these relationships become visible – giving service management a stronger basis for decision-making.
Achieving digital clarity means that you have a reliable and up-to-date overview of the IT environment: which services, applications, infrastructure and data exist, how they are connected, and which dependencies affect the business. In practice, this picture is built on established elements of service management – above all, an accurate CMDB, automated discovery and clearly defined relationships between configuration items (CIs) and services.
When this structure is missing, the consequences quickly become apparent: incidents take longer to resolve, changes become riskier and ways of working become more reactive. For Martin Hermansson, Solutions Architect at Swedwise, digital clarity is therefore not a new tool or standard. It is a way of describing the business value created when service management has the right data in the right context.
Why is a CMDB important for service management?
A Configuration Management Database (CMDB) provides a shared source of information about configuration items and the relationships between them. In service management and ITSM, this context is essential for understanding which services are affected by an incident, assessing risk before a change, and identifying the systems or components that a business-critical service depends on.
When the CMDB is kept up-to-date through discovery, incident, problem and change processes can be based on facts rather than assumptions.
“For us, digital clarity means having a clear and reliable picture of what the IT environment actually looks like: which systems exist, how they are connected and which dependencies affect the business. If you cannot see those relationships, you cannot manage them either”, Martin explains.
From fragments to context
In many organisations, information about assets, systems and dependencies is scattered across tools, teams and documentation. When something goes wrong, the critical question immediately becomes: what is affected – and in what order?
Without context, troubleshooting takes longer and a change can have unexpected consequences. This is where digital clarity becomes practical: a shared view that makes impact visible and supports more informed decisions.
OpenText CMDB – independent of your ITSM platform
OpenText Universal Discovery and CMDB is a vendor-neutral solution for IT discovery and enterprise CMDB. It can be used alongside existing IT tools and ITSM platforms – including OpenText Service Management, ServiceNow, BMC Helix and Jira Service Management.
This means organisations can improve the quality of configuration data and relationship mapping without having to replace their entire service management platform. With automated discovery and an accurate CMDB, organisations can establish total asset visibility – a unified and up-to-date view of assets, services and dependencies across the IT environment. For Swedwise, this combination of visibility and openness is an important part of creating digital clarity in practice.
As AI and automation become part of IT operations and service management, the demands on underlying data increase further. Models and automations are only as good as the data they are built on. For Martin, the key is an accurate CMDB and a stable foundation that makes it possible to build automation and AI that remain reliable over time.
Automated discovery helps keep the CMDB useful and up-to-date. OpenText Universal Discovery and CMDB can discover and map configuration items across on-premises environments, networks and multicloud environments, while continuously updating the information.
When relationships between CIs and services remain current, incident, problem and change processes gain better decision support. The same configuration data can also be used across areas such as security, asset management and AI.
“Digital clarity is not a technical objective – it is a business objective”
Martin Hermansson, Solutions Architect
A concrete example is a Norwegian organisation responsible for digital infrastructure within the healthcare sector. Using service management, discovery and CMDB, the organisation was able to bring information from several isolated systems together on a shared platform and establish standardised ways of working, Martin explains.
Four steps towards digital clarity – with CMDB and discovery as the foundation
Understand dependencies between services, applications, infrastructure and data.
Keep your inventory up-to-date through automated discovery.
Make more informed decisions using impact analysis in incident and change workflows.
Build a robust foundation for standardisation, automation and AI.
What role does Swedwise play?
When asked about Swedwise’s role in creating digital clarity, Martin explains:
“We see ourselves as guides. We help organisations make the invisible visible and create a structure in which technology, processes and information are connected. That is how digital clarity emerges – and how organisations create more time for the things that really deliver value”.
What does digital clarity mean?
Digital clarity is when you have an up-to-date overview of the IT environment – which services, applications, infrastructure and data exist, how they are connected, and which dependencies affect the business. CMDB and discovery are central building blocks in creating this picture.
Why is a CMDB important for service management and digital clarity?
An up-to-date CMDB provides service management with a shared view of configuration items and the relationships between them. This makes it easier to understand the impact of incidents, assess risk before changes are made, and connect technical components to business services. This connected context is what Swedwise describes as digital clarity.
Do you need to replace your ITSM platform to use OpenText Universal Discovery and CMDB?
No. OpenText Universal Discovery and CMDB is vendor-neutral and designed to work alongside existing IT tools and ITSM platforms. OpenText supports integrations with platforms including OpenText Service Management, ServiceNow, BMC Helix and Jira Service Management.
Can OpenText Universal Discovery and CMDB be used with ServiceNow?
Yes. OpenText Universal Discovery and CMDB Integration is available as a ServiceNow-certified app in the ServiceNow Store. According to OpenText, it can provide ServiceNow CMDB with continuously updated configuration data, deeper relationship mapping and bidirectional data flows without the need for custom development.
How are CMDB, AI, automation and digital clarity connected?
AI and automation need reliable context about systems, services and dependencies to produce useful results. An up-to-date CMDB can provide that context. At Swedwise, we call this consolidated and reliable view of the IT environment digital clarity – a way of describing the outcome, rather than a replacement for established concepts such as CMDB, discovery and service management.
Create a clearer view of your IT environment
With the right CMDB and automated discovery, service management teams can see how services, systems and dependencies connect – making it easier to prioritise incidents, plan changes and build reliable automation and AI.
Swedwise helps organisations turn configuration data into practical insight with OpenText Universal Discovery and CMDB, whether you work with OpenText Service Management, ServiceNow or another ITSM platform. Contact us.
