I have spent the last 2 years managing an instance of uCMDB in a company with a pretty large server estate (servers numbered in the thousands). Much of my activity over the last two years has been around extending coverage and functionality. I've spent a lot of time figuring out why this or that server isn't seen - or is seen but DDMA doesn't get the detail it should. The server estate I'm dealing with has just about everything except mainframes and VMS.
I have spent the last 10 years doing Config Mgt of one sort or another. am a convert to discovery. Not that long ago I remembering saying to someone with a 150 server estate that they shouldn't bother with discovery. At that time I'd never seen an example that could give useful data in a way that was easily human usable. I wouldn't say the same thing these days. Even a small estate like that needs good quality discovery to make sure it's properly managed and properly licensed.
And as for "why have Configuration Management" - well, how can you change or fix anything if you don't know how it was or how it should be? Config Mgt is the one truth - if it's based on intelligent processes, good discovery and a generous dose of willingness to go to all the other info sources that can be found, utilised, incorporated, federated.
My colours are firmly nailed to the HP uCMDB & DDMA mast now. It drives me mad sometimes but I find it (now v9.x exists) very, very usable.
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