Product Models & CSDM

[Harrie Emily Ri]

I've found the descriptions about Product Models (cmdb_model) quite confusing - since CSDM 5 there seems to be a much larger focus on this, but it's not quite clear if the intended purpose of the table is CI/Asset driven (Infrastructure components) or also relate to other layers of CSDM, e.g., Business Applications, Application Services & Service Offerings. I.e., is it intended that Product Models also store Technical/Platform Products? 

E.g., Cf., CSDM 5: 

In the ServiceNow AI Platform, products are recorded as Product Models (cmdb_model). Product Models enable you to identify a product owner, the status of a product within your organization, compatibility with other products, reference to product catalog, and reference to a list of objects that represent the details of various stages of a product’s life cycle. Additionally, you can identify the end-of-life details of your products as established by third-party providers and/or internal product owners. With product models, you can document bills of materials (BOMs) with other products as components to represent the set of products that your organization develops, sells, and/or consumes.

The product model tables are not CIs. CIs reference product models using the “Model ID” attribute available on all CMDB tables. For example, a Service Offering CI may reference a Service Offering Model, while a Windows Server may reference a Hardware Model.

E.g., Cf., ServiceNow docs: 

A product is a type of good or service that your company sells and supports. Product models identify different types of products, such as service, hardware, software, or consumables.

A product model is a specific version or configuration of a product. Build hierarchical product models that represent the set of products that your organization offers to its customers and define relationships between different product models. Define whether a product is tracked as an asset, a CI, or both. Additionally, identify or create the CI and asset classes to capture configuration information for product models.

Product models provide customer service agents and customers with a common understanding of the products being used by a particular customer.

Question 1: What is an example of a Product Model referenced by a Service Offering or an Application Service?

Question 2: If e.g., you have a Platform Product = Azure Landing Zone, would this be modelled as a Product Model and related Application Services/Service Instances reference this Product Model via,. Model ID? Or should it be mapped as a Business Application (considering a stratification where AZL is modelled as a Digital Product in the Business Application table). 

From a holistic point-of-view, I would lean towards keeping Product Models 'clean' and only populating based on discovered CI's and not create manual Product Models and keep Platform Products as Business Applications enabling mapping to Business Capabilities and Value Streams keeping in line with other industry frameworks where Products roll up to Value streams. 

[Roberto Corradi]

Hi Harrie,

Strangely I'm seeing the same on my PDI (refreshed). I've gone out of my way to verify this behaviour before so either it's now dependent on a plugin that's not installed for me, something else has changed or there's something amiss on the PDIs (Zurich current patch in my case).

[Harrie Emily Ri]

Super strange. Thank you for your interest. I ran a background script which created e.g., Product Models for Services, however, I'm still not fully convinced by this approach as Services end up being 1:1 with Product Models. 

I think I've gotten a better understanding of Product Models, although I believe there are some missing guidelines from CSDM on how to create and maintain the table in compliance with overall CSDM guidelines, i.e., discovery/automation based population and maintenance versus manual maintenance or integration from EA tools as well as how to define and distinguish Products from Services without ending up having 1:1 structures. In this regard I also see a gap between the table and how it's related to the CSDM Domains, especially Business Capabilities and Value Streams which should be connected via., Products (considering other framework structures). 

[Roberto Corradi]

Just on the population of Model ID - it looks like that activates with Enterprise Architecture, it adds a BR "Populate Application Model".

There's also a scheduled job "CSDM Product Model Assignment" which is supposed to back fill (but I've not verified this myself).

[Mathew Hillyard]

Hi @Harrie Emily Ri 

1. The model ID is set but the field is not on the form by default. It is set by Business Rule “Populate Application Model” on the Business Application table.

2. A MID Server is running executable code that has a technology stack (Java app running on a windows or Linux host) for different environments and can be upgraded so is definitely a business application. Think about planning for a platform upgrade - this usually requires a MID Server upgrade, and many SN apps depend upon it. You also have a different MID server for each environment of ServiceNow instance. I’m not sure what data model examples you have seen but ServiceNow has in the past produced CSDM maps with the MID Server as a business application. The fact that the MID Server appears as an application CI does not preclude it also being a business application.

I hope this helps!

Mat