Help - Official definitions for CI relationship types
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‎07-19-2023 08:08 PM
Good afternoon/Good morning, I would like to find official definitions for each existing CI relationship type, so far I have already found 12, the same ones that I found in the SN documentation.
I know it depends on each business, but there are some confusing relationships and a definitive definition of each and every one would help a lot.
If anyone could help me, I would greatly appreciate it!

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‎07-19-2023 08:32 PM
Hi @CesarServin39 ,
Dependent and non-dependent relationships
Dependent relationships, such as tomcat RunsOn Hardware, are used by the Identification and Reconciliation Engine (IRE) to identify dependent CIs.
Non-dependent relationships are not used for CI identification, and therefore can be deleted if no longer needed. CMDB tracks discovery source and last scanned time for non-dependent relationship in the Relationship Sources [sys_rel_source] table. Dependent relationships are used for CI identification. Therefore they should not be directly deleted and they are not tracked.
- There are no other data sources for that relationship.
- The relationship was not updated for some specified length of time and therefore is no longer needed.
When a non-dependent relationship is deleted from the CI Relationship [cmdb_rel_ci] table, all cascading corresponding records in the Relationship Sources [sys_rel_source] table are deleted.
Key relationships
Parent | Child | Description |
---|---|---|
Applicative Flow To | Applicative Flow From |
Connections between endpoint CIs. Note: For internal use only (service model).
|
Connects to | Connected by |
Network Connections between elements that are talking to each other. Examples: Workstation to switch, switch to switch, kubernetes workload to service. |
Contains | Contained by |
Typically a containment relationship (CI to contained CI). The child CI typically has a single parent CI with this relationship type. Examples: Tomcat to Tomcat WAR, VMware Datacenter contains Network. |
Defines resources for | Gets resources from |
Parent CI defines/gets resources from a child CI. Example: VMware - Resource pool gets resources from ESX Server. |
Depends on | Used by | Parent CI depends on child CI. Meaning that problem/change in the child CI may impact the parent CI. |
Hosted on | Hosts |
Hosting relationship between an element and its host. Examples: Cloud resource to logical data center, k8s workload to k8s cluster. |
Implement End Point To | Implement End Point From |
Endpoint to CI that exposes this endpoint. Note: For internal use only (service model).
|
Manages | Managed by |
Typically used where one CI manages one or more other CIs. Example: vCenter manages vCenter Datacenter. |
Members | Member of |
Typically used with clusters where a cluster node is a member of a cluster. Example: ESXi Server is a member of vCenter Cluster. |
Owns | Owned by | Usually a containment relationship (CI to owned CI). The child CI typically has a single parent with this relationship type. |
Runs on | Runs |
Typically between a CI that represents a software application, to the hosting hardware/VM. Example: Tomcat 'Runs on' Linux server. |
Use End Point To | Use End Point From |
From the CI to an outgoing endpoint. Note: For internal use only (service model).
|
You should be able to see all relationships inside cmdb_rel_type.list
https://your_instance.service-now.com/nav_to.do?uri=/cmdb_rel_type_list.do
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‎07-19-2023 09:44 PM