My Certified Technical Architect Series - Week 5

[Marcos Kassak]

Topics that we covered:

• Data Strategies
• Instance Data Replication
• Domain Separation

Data... How many times have you jumped into a core table like Users, Locations, Company, or Departments, only to find them either empty, with fewer records, or filled with duplicates? We've all been there.

How to handle that?

• Define who owns each type of data, set up a Governance Board, and make them accountable for defining policies for data control (duplicates, usage...)
• Management - Leverage and monitor CMDB Health Dashboard for Completeness, Correctness, and Compliance.
• Architecture - Ensure that the Technical Governance Board will cover CMDB/CSDM, integration layers.
• Security - Make sure that there is a training policy for sensitive information breaches - consider field level encryption/edge encryption.

ServiceNow is the platform of platforms. It acts as the orchestrator, not a data repository. You should not leverage ServiceNow to fix your data from HR, AD, ERPs, etc. You can consider many other approaches; for example, having a microservice in the middle to handle data modeling could be a good approach for your organization if you need to feed multiple systems.

Key takeaways:

• Instance Data Replication should not be used when you need to move large data sets (limit on 3M records), move metadata, or replicate data outside ServiceNow - IDR does not replace cloning.
• Domain Separation handles three main areas: Data, Process, and UI - you can differentiate those three pillars for Customer A or Customer B using the same instance (I'm not a big fan of DS. We haven't chosen this approach for our Case Study.)
• The platform owner and Technical Governance Board should be responsible for data governance. Confused on how to set it up? I’ve got you a checklist here.
• Using other systems to discover data in your CMDB? Make sure to leverage Robust Transform Engine + IRE for identification and reconciliation rules.
• Data migration practice guide, link here.
• Data security questionnaire, link here.

Have you ever had an instance with Domain Separation? Share your experience in the comments!

Thanks for reading.