Mapping multiple companies to the same CI

[Aaron64]

We have several hundred CIs, ranging from Infrastructure CIs (Servers, Network Gear) through to Business Services that can be consumed / used by multiple companies.
For context, we’ve used Offerings to distinguish between “company A” and "company B” etc but this has resulted in what I feel is an over proliferation of Offerings in our CMDB. We have also thought of using subscribed by Company, however this only applies to Services.
I’m interested in if there is any “Best Practice” way on how to capture this using CSDM?

[Stig Brandt]

I dont know if this is best practice, just an idea.

But if you don't want to use - subscribe by company on a Service Offering, which I think is the best practice.

Then you should be able to relate CI's to either user or group - using the CI relationship, in this case you need to be able to identify company from the user record.

https://www.servicenow.com/docs/bundle/washingtondc-servicenow-platform/page/product/configuration-m...

[Barry Kant]

Alternative you can use CSM for that purpose, now that is just a fit if there is a need to have that level of distinction as that as another type of solution.

[Mathew Hillyard]

@Aaron64,

I don't think it would be sensible to attempt to manage every CI in the CMDB and each of the Companies that can consume them. Typically they would consume Service Offerings rather than infrastructure directly - unless they're building your Services for you, and that would be unlikely to be done at a Company level.

Are these companies in an MSP context - i.e. customers? 

If so, @Barry Kant has the solution for you.

If not, and these companies presumably do not own or support the services, add the "Subscribed by Company" related list to Service Offering from as per the screenshot.

[Aaron64]

Thanks everyone for your thoughts.
For additional context we are a government department which is an MSP to other local government departments.
The issue I think we would have with using subscribed by companies on a Service Offering would be the limitation of distinguishing the true consumption of a shared platform.
For example, we could have an Application Service that is being consumed by five companies, but one server might be segregated to a particular company (company A), while the others might have a combination of companies on them (Company B & C or D). If I use this approach and am asked by our architect team for a list of Servers for company A, then using the subscribed by company on the offering will also return servers which might only be used for the other companies (B, D and D).
We have been thinking about using CSM particularly with the use of Install Base Items, but the challenge here is that IBI is a one-to-one relationship to CI. Given the large numbers of CIs we have, I question if this is a practical approach.