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Chapter 3: Change and Configuration Management 47
Configuration Management Relationships
Many of the main benefits of configuration management come from the relationships
between the configuration items that are defined in the structure of the configuration
management database. Getting these relationships correct is vital for successful configura-
tion management.
The relationships grow more complex the more configuration items you have. To see the
principle, take a very simple example, with only six configuration items, showing a simple
relationship between Exchange hardware and software, as illustrated in Figure 3.2.
Hardware
Server
Printer
Software
Exchange
Server
Hotfix
Figure 3.2
Six Configuration Items and Relationships Between Them
Here the server itself is obviously hardware, but it also represents the software that is to
installed on it. These elements depend on each other. If there was no hardware, Exchange
would have nothing to be installed on, and if there is no Exchange 2000 software, there is
little point in having the hardware.