Relating application services to servers

[Tony Collins]

If I want to use OOB capabilities with CSDM, what relationship must I use between an application service (cmdb_ci_service_discovered) and a server (cmdb_ci_server)? 

In my review of the documentation and forum, it seems that some folks model

1. from the application service to the application to a server
2. from the application service to the server

I doubt that OOB capabilities will support both models.

Thanks for any information.

Tony

[Ed Laar1]

Hi Tony,

I am just walking through the Paris configuration management documentation. There I find this statement:

All connections created between CIs in an application service are of the Depends on::Used by relationship type. You can modify this default relationship type by changing the value of the sa.it_service.manual_ci_rel_type property.

See this link: https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/paris-servicenow-platform/page/product/service-mapping/task/manua...

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Ed

[nyancer3]

Hi Tony,

Page 16 of the CSDM 2.0 whitepaper (also outlined directly in the product documentation here) outlines the expected relationships. In this case, Application Service > Depends on > Application > Runs on > Host.

The Application Service is the logical model for a given environment of your application and the Application is the discoverable installation in your network. So if you have a production application that is installed on multiple application servers then you will have a single application service that depends on multiple Applications (presumably running on multiple hosts).

But if you are not discovering or recording the Application CIs for some reason, then I would suggest you use the relationship Application Service > Depends on > Server, as the service does not actually "run" on the host.

Hope that helps.

Thanks,
Nick

[Tony Collins]

Thanks for the responses and they illustrate my concern related to ServiceNow OOB capabilities.  Will the ServiceNow OOB capabilities 'work' with both of the recommended modeling options?

Obviously, we want ServiceNow OOB capabilities to handle issues with servers and 'automatically' relate them to application services.  As technicians, we realize that the OOB capabilities will expect certain relationships to perform any actions.

Tony

[nyancer3]

Hi Tony,

My take on the documentation is that as long as you are using the Depends On relationship, then it should work. Of course, I'm certain it will depend on which functionality on the platform you're using.

For example, with Event Management as long as you build out the map correctly and set up the impact tree, then it should not matter whether the "child" is an application or a server when you receive an alert against the host; you can still bubble up the alert through the impact tree.

The best thing to do, as with anything, is to set it up in a sub-prod instance and give it a good test.

Thanks,
Nick