What is the difference between a service and a business service?

[Michele O_Dell]

My CSDM is setup with Services and Offerings. We use them to route incidents and RITMS. We use them to generate service maps back to the infrastructure in the CMDB. 

When I look at the cmdb_ci_service_list table, the entries all have Class=Service. Not Class=Business Service

Why would you use a Service vs a Business Service? Is there a difference in how they can be used in the system?

[HIROSHI SATOH]

In ServiceNow, the terms "Service" and "Business Service" are closely related but have distinct roles, particularly within the Common Service Data Model (CSDM).

1. Service vs. Business Service:

   • Service: A "Service" is a broader term that encompasses any service that provides value to end users. This could include both technical and business services. In the CMDB, a "Service" generally represents something that is provided to consumers, whether internal or external, and is a higher-level entity that can be broken down into more specific components like business services, technical services, and application services.
   • Business Service: A "Business Service" is a specific type of service that directly supports business processes or functions. These services are typically customer-facing and aligned with the strategic objectives of the organization. For example, an online banking service or an HR management system could be considered a business service.

2. Usage in the System:

   • In the CMDB (cmdb_ci_service_list table), entries typically use the generic "Service" class because it is a broader classification. However, in the context of CSDM and service mapping, "Business Services" are more specifically tied to business outcomes and are used to map and manage services that have a direct impact on the business.
   • Routing Incidents and RITMs: You may use "Services" and "Service Offerings" to route incidents and RITMs based on the structure you've set up. The distinction between "Service" and "Business Service" might not be crucial here, but understanding their different roles can help you manage and categorize services more effectively.
   • Service Maps: While you generate service maps, you may notice that "Business Services" are often the top-level services that rely on multiple technical services or components, which are also represented in the CMDB as "Services."

The choice between using "Service" vs. "Business Service" can depend on how granularly you want to categorize and manage your services, especially in terms of their impact on business processes.

[SteveMacWWT]

To add to the great answer above: having a separate table for Business Service is a relatively new setup, so the data in your system may be following the older design. This is NOT something that needs to be fixed, as far as I know. 

[Mathew Hillyard]

Take a look at the CSDM 4.0 White Paper. It explains everything you need to know regarding services. In terms of history the Service table [cmdb_ci_service] was there first. ServiceNow promoted it to a parent table and extended it with the child tables Business Service [cmdb_ci_service_business] and Technical Service [cmdb_ci_service_technical]. Other extended tables include Service Offering [service_offering] and Automated Business Service [cmdb_ci_service_auto] - itself a parent table for all types of Application Service.

There are related links on the Service record to convert it to either a Business or Technical Service and a UI Action to convert it to an Application Service.

If you wish to align to CSDM then you should convert your records in the Service [cmdb_ci_service] table - Business Services sit in the Sell/Consume domain and Technical Services in the Manage Technical Services domain. This is a critical activity as it establishes your business-facing and technical underpinning services. As an example, something like "Database Support" would contain support Service Offerings for different database platforms, each of which could contain a Dynamic CI Group filtering out the specific Database CIs that are in scope. This is a much richer and more valuable model than just having an inventory of "Services".

One final point: as Service is the parent table, once you have all your records in the correct class, you will still be able to see all of them from the Service table [cmdb_ci_service] as per normal table extensions.