Real-life CSDM example using ServiceNow (simplified)

[Robert80]

or, What did I do wrong?

This is an over-simplified example of my ServiceNow instance using the CSDM. For context, I don't buy my ServiceNow offering from ServiceNow, rather it's through a third-party provider. The third-party provider's offering is represented here as the "ServiceNow Host Offering".

If I log a change request, for example against the Application Service and Refresh Impacted Services, the IT Change Management offering is listed correctly. If however, I were to log the change against the ServiceNow Host Offering and Refresh Impacted Services, the business service offering isn't listed.

Where have I gone wrong in my thinking? I've been looking at models for a few days and it's all gone a bit fuzzy. I suspect I'm missing something very obvious but I just can't see it. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[Stig Brandt · Accepted solution]

Hi Robert

This is a very good question, and have been around this myself a number of times. 

1) The "Hosting Service" is a Technical Service for your Application Service, that means it is not the "Hosting Service" - you make changes to, but the Application Service

So you will never raise a ticket on the Technical Service, unless, it is the CI Components - that supports the Technical Service, that you want to change.

I think maybe you want the "Hosting Service" - to execute the change, that group should be referenced from the "IT Change Management - service offering - or application service record" - support group.

best regards

Stig

[Barry Kant]

That's correct. 

The Business Service Offering either the Technical Service Offering are the entry points in a way that:

• the change is initiated from Business Side (business service offering)
• the change is initiated from the Support Side (technical service offering)

The impacted services is looking upstream from the related Impacted CIs. for the registered technical service offering there is just 1 upstream relation, which is Foundation Platform. You need indeed the application service level (or any infrastructure level below) to see upstream relations to Business Service (offerings).

[Alec Hanson]

Agree, from my understanding the Technical Service records the Support Group for the Application Service - which is where you would raise the change. Indeed the Technical Service Offering controlling the Support details for all Application services or CI components is one of the big benefits I like.

Would you really be raising a change at the offering level ever (unless changing the Offering details itself)?

[Robert80]

Thank you for your replies, I really appreciate the detail. Alec, I think logging a change against the offering if you were changing the commitments, for example, is an interesting use case actually. I was thinking about a scenario where the hosting service is unavailable and wanting to identify what that means to the business. I wonder how using an outage record would work.