In my previous blog, I discussed about learning to crawl according to the 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 talks briefly about starting to walk. The featured image on top is showing what is required to walk based on the white paper. This is the first time when Services are included, but still from a very operational point of view. These services are heavily 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 an Application Service perspective. This class has been part of out-of-the-box setup since London release. And according to the white paper, should be used for manually maintained applications also. 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. also.
But for now, let’s still focus on the application domain. ServiceNow is also planning to extend the model to other data domains with more examples during the Autumn, so we have plenty of time to dig into 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 the key to success. Just like with Business Applications, each Technical service needs to have an owner and manager in place to make sure that required data is available, up-to-date and according to the agreed model. Technical Service Offering might be a good place for Support Group reference also 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.
If you have any questions or comments about this model or using DCM to enforce the CSDM in your organization, please contact me or leave a comment below.
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