Patent ID: 8527747

Claim:
A method of hardware configuration management, comprising: creating an object within a configuration management database, the object corresponding to a future system for an existing production environment, the future system including new hardware in addition to existing hardware of an existing system for the existing production environment, the new hardware not yet part of the existing system, including: adding a proposed new hardware configuration item for an existing production environment and its hardware configuration management software; completing a detailed setup of the management of the proposed hardware configuration item before the proposed hardware configuration item is available to the production environment; marking the object within the configuration management database as being a future system that does not yet exist and not a ready system that currently exists; discovering a system that now exists and that corresponds to the object; in response to discovering the system that now exists and that corresponds to the object, marking the object as ready within the configuration management database; and preventing tasks from running on the proposed hardware configuration item until a predefined period following activation of a new hardware configuration item that has the detailed setup completed and the proposed hardware configuration item is mapped thereto.