Has a history as an administrative center là gì năm 2024

We picture nurses as the hands-on health care providers who juggle multiple tasks to keep us well. That’s definitely true. But in the field of nursing, it’s the nurse administrator who, you might say, juggles the nurses.

Nurse administrators supervise nurses and other health care team members. They recruit, hire and train nurses. Other responsibilities include building work schedules and conducting performance reviews.

Nurse administrators—sometimes called nurse managers, nurse directors or chief nursing officers—do not get directly involved with patient care. However, their job duties most assuredly affect patients’ experiences and outcomes. Administrators keep their staff motivated, oversee or provide needed training, and ensure that regulations are met, if not exceeded.

Because they operate in managerial roles, nurse administrators have to have a solid business sense, exhibit strong communication skills and be masterful at time management. In addition, they must possess an extensive medical background and training.

As mentioned, a nurse administrator doesn’t typically interact with patients. As a result, these professionals usually work out of an office (but may travel) and keep more traditional hours than an RN.

Nurse administrators are responsible for:

  • Maintaining the budget and reporting on financial matters.
  • Serving as a liaison between nurses and other hospital workers, including executives.
  • Establishing policies and procedures and ensuring staff is in compliance.
  • Developing a strategic vision for the hospital or department.

How Do You Become a Nurse Administrator?

Nurse administrators almost always start their careers as registered nurses, which means they usually have earned a bachelor’s of science in nursing. They must hold a postgraduate nursing degree—typically a master’s of science in nursing or a doctoral degree (Ph.D. or DNP)—and have extensive experience in the field.

Beyond those basics, a truly effective nurse administrator must have leadership ability.

For example, consider building up a tool kit of “soft skills” like critical thinking, problem-solving and emotional intelligence. After all, in this career, you supervise nurses, who, by definition, are spending their days in high-stress, high-stakes situations.

Supporting—not just supervising—these nurses means an administrator has to maintain a positive attitude (even at the end of a long day), remain calm during emergencies and give staff opportunities to expand their capabilities. Oh, and don’t forget you’ll have to balance the needs of a variety of stakeholders.

As an executive-level employee, , though the median salary sits at about $81,000, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Demand for registered nurses has been growing for decades, and so their supervisors are also in demand.

Most often, the administrators work in hospitals, but they may also oversee a network of hospitals or other health care facilities, such as nursing homes or long-term rehabilitation centers.

Ready for the Next Step?

If you’re ready to increase the responsibilities and rewards that come with an MSN degree, Elmhurst University’s nursing program will enable you to reach higher in your nursing practice. The program offers three areas of expertise for you to choose from: Clinical Nurse Leader, Nurse Educator, or Nurse Administrator.

A configuration management database (CMDB) is a file usually in the form of a standardized database that contains all relevant information about the hardware and software components used in an organization's IT services and the relationships among those components. A CMDB stores information that provides an organized view of configuration data and a means of examining that data from any desired perspective.

As IT infrastructure becomes more complex, the importance of tracking and understanding the information within the IT environment increases. The use of CMDBs is a best practice for IT teams and leaders who need to identify and verify each component of their infrastructure to better manage and improve it.

How CMDBs work and why they are important

Within the context of a CMDB, components of an information system are referred to as configuration items (CIs). CIs can be any conceivable IT components, including software, hardware, documentation and personnel. They can also indicate the way in which each CI is configured and any relationship or dependencies among them. The processes of configuration management seek to specify, control and track CIs and any changes made to them in a comprehensive and systematic fashion.

CMDBs capture attributes of the CIs, including CI importance, CI ownership and CI identification code. A CMDB also provides details about the relationships and dependencies between CIs, which is a powerful tool if used correctly. As a business enters more CIs into the system, the CMDB becomes a stronger resource to predict changes within the organization. For example, if an outage occurs, IT can understand from the CI data which systems are affected.

A CMDB can be used for many activities in addition to capturing CI data, including the following:

  • Performing problem management.
  • Conducting root cause analysis.
  • Identifying potential vulnerabilities.
  • Complying with regulatory metrics.
  • Investigating workflows.
  • Reducing downtime.
  • Enhancing service delivery.
  • Providing optimization of business services.
  • Tracking software licenses.
  • Capturing real-time data on potential performance issues.

The CMDB connects to virtually every element in the IT infrastructure. It provides asset management, as well as configuration data for system and network administration and security management. Data from the CMDB is typically presented on a dashboard display.

Has a history as an administrative center là gì năm 2024
A configuration management database contains information about all the hardware and software components in an organization's IT infrastructure.

Who needs CMDBs?

IT organizations need CMDBs to capture information about the CIs. CMDBs can be paired with asset management systems to identify all elements within an IT infrastructure. CMDBs build on asset inventories, providing information on the relationships among CIs.

Organizations use the CMDB to predict changes that can affect IT systems, which systems will be affected and how. IT administrators can also use CMDB data to identify when it's appropriate or necessary to replace a device or other asset.

Advantages of a CMDB

CMDBs provide various benefits, including the following:

  • Centralized view of data. This capability gives IT administrators more control over the IT infrastructure. Admins can get data on each component in an IT infrastructure -- for example, a storage device or an application running on a server. This helps with planning, managing and maintaining the entire infrastructure. It also prevents administrative and management errors, helps to ensure regulatory compliance and increases security.
  • Cost savings. CMDBs enable IT managers to spot ways to eliminate unnecessary or redundant IT resources and their associated costs.
  • Data integration. CMDBs let admins integrate data from various vendors' software, reconcile that data, identify any inconsistencies within the database and then ensure all data is synchronized. A CMDB system can also integrate other configuration-related processes, such as change management and incident management, to better manage the IT environment.

Challenges of a CMDB

A CMDB can also present a number of challenges. A particularly difficult issue is organizational in nature: to convince the business of the benefits of a CMDB and then to use the system properly once it is implemented.

Once implemented, other challenges include the following:

  • Importing relevant data. This can be a tedious task because admins must input a wealth of information about each IT asset, including financial information, upgrade history and performance profile. Modern CMDB tools offer enhanced discovery capabilities, enabling the tool to find and profile CIs automatically. However, this data doesn't always come from the same source. In theory, a process called data federation brings together data from disparate locations to prevent IT from replacing or eliminating other data systems. In practice, data is dispersed across sources that aren't well integrated, which prevents IT managers from federating data.
  • Updating and maintaining CMDBs. Over time, IT administrators must regularly review, update and maintain CMDB data. A CMDB can fail if admins don't update the data, and it becomes stale and unusable.
    Has a history as an administrative center là gì năm 2024
    Data integrity is the cornerstone of a good configuration management database system.

Evolution of the CMDB

A CMDB is a single source of truth of configuration information for IT assets, so it can be easily managed to deliver services. Visibility and monitoring of assets and dependencies streamlines upgrades and the deployment of new services. For example, CMDB data can help identify which servers run an older operating system (OS) version and how patches might alter security and performance.

Organizations can track and enforce CMDB information over time, which improves security and compliance and reduces risks. CMDBs also play a central role in automated failover and disaster recovery activities.

Recently, the term configuration management has expanded its meaning to reflect the increased use of software-based configurations and interactions: scripting the configuration of a software stack, container management and Kubernetes, automation down to the code level, and cloud resources and provisioning.

The DevOps universe of technologies and practices, including containers, microservices, infrastructure as code, source control, package management and release automation, has changed what it means to map and track asset configurations and dependencies. Machine learning and artificial intelligence promise to predict the impact of undesirable results more quickly and accurately from configuration changes and their propagation.

Has a history as an administrative center là gì năm 2024
Software configuration management provides several benefits to organizations seeking more control over their software development process, from source code to APIs to change requests.

The role of configuration management for tracking configuration changes in physical and digital assets hasn't gone away. Organizations still need to understand the landscape of their IT infrastructure resources and how the interplay of those resources supports business objectives.

CMDBs have evolved to more closely align with IT service management (ITSM) and reporting capabilities, as well as the cloud and distributed infrastructure. Many CMDBs integrate with IT asset management (ITAM) platforms, which are similar information repositories about IT assets that support change management. CMDBs can also be used to store such information themselves.

CMDBs and ITIL

The IT Infrastructure Library service management framework includes specifications for configuration management, although adoption of the ITIL framework isn't a prerequisite for configuration management. According to ITIL specifications, the four major aspects of configuration management are the following:

  1. Discovery. Identify CIs to be included in the CMDB.
  2. Security. Control data to ensure that it can only be changed by authorized individuals.
  3. Reporting. Maintain status, ensuring that the status of any CI is consistently recorded and updated.
  4. Auditing. Verify through audits and reviews of the data to ensure that it's accurate.

ITIL v2 (2000) introduced the concept of configuration management, which captures details of all configuration items as part of ITSM activities. ITIL v3 (2007) expanded this approach into a formal configuration management system, composed of CMDBs acting in concert, providing an important resource for service management and other management activities. ITIL v4 (2019) provided an IT operations model for delivering products and services. It plays a role in the overall business strategy.

CMDBs vs. asset management

There is functional overlap between CMDBs and ITAM platforms for change management. Their capabilities are also increasingly integrated into broader service management frameworks. However, they are different tools used for different purposes.

ITAM tools track asset data, such as hardware and software details, across the entire asset lifecycle. That data tends to be more static than the dynamic activities a CMDB tracks: acquisition and procurement, operation, change management, maintenance and disposal.

ITAM data includes configuration information. It also tracks costs at each lifecycle stage, such as purchasing and licensing, service, support and depreciation. Asset management benefits include better asset utilization and proactive asset compliance and security auditing. Improved asset visibility also leads to faster and more accurate business decision-making.

ITAM tools typically are used to achieve business-oriented goals, such as making and reviewing decisions through an infrastructure asset lifecycle. Configuration management tools are better served for service-oriented goals, helping IT staff understand dependencies so they can plan and maintain IT services. Change management is an important activity CMDBs support.

ITAM and a CMDB aren't mutually exclusive. For example, an application server is an IT asset with financial value that depreciates over time. It also requires maintenance and can incorporate operational information, such as service agreements, that aren't part of a CMDB. That server also is a CI, and information about it can be tracked and managed through a CMDB, including its installed OS and software, server setup and firmware versions. The CMDB could reveal how changes to the server's configuration state might affect performance, stability and security; this is called an impact analysis.

CMDB vendors and tools

General capabilities of a CMDB include the following:

  • Discover and assess the CI of IT assets.
  • Automatically update CMDB entries when an asset is changed or updated.
  • Map dependencies between assets and CIs.
  • Simulate or predict the effect of a change to CIs.
  • Audit CMDB records for security and compliance initiatives.

Many configuration management and CMDB tools are available for enterprises of various sizes and needs. The following are some examples of such apps: