Application CI lifecycle process? Best practices to manage and retire Application CI?

[Krish_na_Kumar]

Hi All,

1. I am new to CMDB role and had following buring questions related to Applications CIs in ServiceNow CMDB
2. What is the OOTB recommendations to retire Application CIs?
3. While Discovery is enabled for the applications, we are not sure what should be our approach for managing the lifecycle of Applications CIs?
4. Who should own the applications and what there role would be?
5. Should there be any manual intervention in Application lifecycle?
6. What should happen if any CI is not discovered for many days, what should be the process to retire them (manual or automated)?
7. what should happen to related CIs.. e.g., servers, software installed etc..?

Please share any references links while answering my questions?

thanks.

Krishna

[Shubham_Jain]

@Krish_na_Kumar 

What are the OOTB recommendations to retire Application CIs?

• OOTB Recommendation: ServiceNow doesn’t automatically retire Application CIs. However, you can leverage Lifecycle status fields like Operational, Retired, or Decommissioned.

• Use CMDB Health Jobs (Staleness Checks) to identify inactive CIs based on Discovery or last update timestamp.

• Retirement can be automated using Scheduled Jobs, Business Rules, or Flow Designer when certain conditions are met (e.g., CI not discovered in X days).

Refer the document URL: https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/vancouver-it-operations-management/page/product/configuration-man...

With Discovery enabled, what’s the best way to manage Application CI lifecycle?

• Discovery only creates/updates the CIs. It doesn’t manage full lifecycle (e.g., planning, deployment, decommissioning).

• Recommend using Application Portfolio Management (APM) if available – it helps define lifecycle stages like In Planning, In Use, Retired.

• Maintain CI Install Status (e.g., In Use, Retired) and Operational Status.

• Use Application Services (in CSDM model) to link Applications to infrastructure and monitor their health/lifecycle indirectly.

Who should own the Applications and what is their role?

• Application CIs should have a defined Application Owner (often from business or IT).

Should there be any manual intervention in the Application CI lifecycle?

• Yes, manual intervention is recommended, especially for:

  • Approving retirement or updates for business-critical applications.

  • Assigning ownership and verifying dependencies.

  • Updating lifecycle stages when automation is not feasible.

• However, you can reduce manual steps using workflows, Flow Designer, and APM integration.

What happens to related CIs – e.g., servers, software, etc.?

• ServiceNow uses dependency relationships (Depends on, Runs on, etc.).

• If an Application CI is retired:

  • Evaluate if related CIs are shared with other applications.

  • Only retire them if no other active CI depends on them.

  • Use Impact Analysis and Service Maps to analyze this.

  • Ideally, automate the cleanup using orphan CI detection scripts.

[Krish_na_Kumar]

@Shubham_Jain thanks for help!

Just to clarify;

are your recommendations such as writing business rule and flow to retire, applicable to all types of applications? Considering that different application types (e.g., Oracle, SQL, VMware, etc.) are saved under different child classes within the Application table, I wanted to confirm the applicability.

Also, I have a mix of applications: some discovered through Discovery, and others that have never been discovered—either because Discovery is not yet enabled for them or they were loaded manually. Would your suggestions still hold true for this mixed dataset?

[VikMach]

@Krish_na_Kumar, answer to all your questions is "CMDB Data Manager". This is what ServiceNow has provided as a low code approach to manage your CI's. NO business rules no scripts. It is all created by ServiceNow. You just need to set the policy right. It is simple and easy to understand.
Take a 1 hr 50 mins course in ServiceNow University and you are all set to drive the CMDB CI management.
Here's the direct link - CMDB Data Manager Overview - ServiceNow University

If you wish to study more precisely, then of course docs. Here's the link - Working with CMDB Data Manager.
Don't stress too much my friend, just finish the course and you're good to go. Explaining each and every step will be too complex for you to understand and there will be be too many questions and answers back and forth. Better finish the course, it will give you additional insights and best practices. Good for your profile as well.

Cheers!

Let me know if it worked!

Regards,
Vikas K