CSDM 5.0 - Business App to Service Instance Relationship Change

[Nicole Bell]

Hi guys

In CSDM v4.0 the relationship type between Business App and App Service was 'Consumes, Consumed by'.  

In version 5.0 the relationship type between Business App and App Service was 'Uses, Used by'.  

We have recently upgraded to Yokohama which has CSDM 5.0 - but our existing Business App and App Service (now Service Instance) records are still using the 'Consumes, Consumed by' relationship.  The CSDM health dashboard is also not identifying these as incorrect relationships and the playbooks still talk to 'Consumes, Consumed by' as the correct relationship.

Is there a plan to 'auto' change existing relationships and update the health dashboards to focus on the expected relationship type?

[Maik Skoddow · Accepted solution]

Hi @Nicole Bell 

Based on the available information, there is no evidence that ServiceNow automatically updates existing relationship types from "Consumes, Consumed by" to "Uses, Used by" during upgrades to CSDM 5.0 or the Yokohama release. Similarly, there is no indication that the CSDM Health Dashboard or playbooks are automatically updated to enforce or highlight the new recommended relationship types after an upgrade.

This approach is consistent with ServiceNow’s general upgrade philosophy: upgrades do not retroactively change existing data or relationships unless explicitly handled by upgrade scripts or update sets. This avoids unintended impacts on customer data and customizations.

Guidance and Next Steps

• Manual Remediation: Organizations are typically expected to manually review and update relationship types to align with the latest CSDM recommendations after an upgrade.

• CSDM Health Dashboard: The dashboard may not immediately enforce new relationship types; it often lags behind CSDM model changes until ServiceNow updates the dashboard logic in a future release or patch.

• Playbook Documentation: Playbooks and in-product guidance may also take time to reflect model changes, especially in environments with existing data.

Recommendations

• Perform an impact analysis on your existing applications and processes and validate if anything would get broken after a manual relationship type change.

• Consider updating your relationship types from "Consumes, Consumed by" to "Uses, Used by" for new records and, if feasible, for existing data to align with CSDM 5.0 best practices.

• Monitor ServiceNow release notes and community forums for any future updates or tools that might assist with automated remediation.

• If you require the health dashboard to enforce the new relationships, consider submitting a request to ServiceNow or developing a custom dashboard indicator.

Maik

[Mathew Hillyard]

Hi @Nicole Bell 

This question was answered recently on the "Elevate Your Data Strategy with latest CMDB and CSDM innovations" webinar.

The recommended relationship type between a Business Application and the Service Instance family of tables has changed. v4.0 and prior was Consumes::Consumed by, v5.0 is Uses::Used by. As @MattB_NC has mentioned, there is a typo in the v5.0 whitepaper in the text below the list of relationships.

However... I would advise anyone using or implementing CSDM to hold off making any changes for now. Apparently ServiceNow has a migration path in the works and the Product teams may not have updated their applications to match the whitepaper. If you plough ahead with this be aware of some of the issues you might encounter, for example:

• Impacted services on Incident and Change - Impacted Business Applications will be populated based on the v4.0 relationship to the Impacted (app) services.
• The Application Service Wizard's first page (Provide Basic Details) allows you to connect up Business Applications - again this will be done based on the v4.0 relationship.
• The Enterprise Architecture application still refers to Application Services and their relationship to Business Application using the v4.0 relationship (e.g. CMDB Query Builder).
• Suggested Relationships (when manually relating CIs) will continue to suggest the v4.0 relationship first.
• The CSDM Data Foundations Dashboard still represents the v4.0 relationship.
• Digital Portfolio Management still uses the v4.0 relationship.

If you use the SNUtils extension and do a search for both the Sys ID of the "Consumes" CI Relationship Type (41008aa6ef32010098d5925495c0fb94) - you need to do this as ServiceNow has hard-coded this Sys ID in quite a few scripts - and also do a search for any System Properties whose value is this Sys ID (which will be your customisations), you will find most of the dependencies that will need to be customised (and potentially rolled back once ServiceNow provides a way to migrate).

I hope this helps!

Mat