We wrote a practical step-by-step guide that helps organizations align with CSDM, communicate progress clearly, define required resources, and explain the business value to leadership with confidence. Read more about it here.
In my previous blog, I discussed learning to crawl according to ServiceNow’s Common Service Data Model white paper version 2, published in October 2019. Now it’s time to stand up and walk.
In the crawl phase, the model only focused on Business Applications and couple of related CI classes to build up a minimum CMDB. Now, the model is extended with Technical Services that manage the configurations and start to create a foundation for Service Portfolios.
“Technical services represent the technical service portfolio of services provided for the business to consume”
CSDM white paper v2.0 – Oct 2019
This blog briefly discusses the process of starting to walk. The featured image at the top illustrates the requirements for walking, as outlined in the white paper. This marks the first time services are included, albeit from a very operational perspective. These services are closely related to ITSM applications, such as Incident, Change, and Problem Management.
Other Configuration Items at this point are mainly populated by Discovery (or Service Mapping), but just as well by manual input and should be related to Technical Service Offerings. In my mind, that is the most important part of this phase – connecting configuration items to services that manage them.
The example blueprint below is drawn from the perspective of an Application Service. This class has been part of the out-of-the-box setup since the London release. According to the white paper, it should also be used for manually maintained applications. In the conceptual model, this class has a very crucial role. Application Service connects infrastructure CIs, Business Applications, Technical Services, and Business Services all together.
On the other hand, this Application Service class could be replaced with any other CI Class that is directly related to services managing the CIs especially if the CI class is a “frontend CI” meaning that service consumers have direct connection to the items, such as applications, workstations, mobile devices etc. Or, in case of these more technical services, the frontend CIs can be servers, databases, etc..
But for now, let’s still focus on the application domain. ServiceNow is also planning to extend the model to other data domains with additional examples during the Autumn, so we have plenty of time to explore those later on as well.
“Common personas in this (technical services) domain are Application Service Owner and Technology Service Owner”
CSDM white paper v2.0 – Oct 2019
Again, defining ownership is key to success. Just as with Business Applications, each Technical Service needs to have an owner and manager in place to ensure that required data is available, up-to-date, and according to the agreed-upon model. The Technical Service Offering might also be a good place for the Support Group reference to be used in different auto assignments.
This time, the Walk phase data model template could look like this:
DCM Blueprint template for starting to Walk the CSDM
The image above is a screenshot from a DCM blueprint template. This template can be turned into an actual blueprint and used to manage and audit your business application data according to the Common Service Data Model.
This DCM Blueprint template is a available in the CSDM Content Pack from the ServiceNow Store.
Additional CSDM Resources
We have written extensively on aligning with the Common Service Data Model and how Data Content Manager can help ease the process.
Here are some excellent places to start:
Please don't hesitate to reach out to us if you have any questions.
