What is the recommended approach and practice to map dependencies between application services?

[Richard29]

What is the recommended approach and practice to map dependencies between application services?

I understand you map application services to CI's using the Service Configuration Item Association table [svc_ci_assoc] .

Should dependencies between application services be created in the CI Relationship [cmdb_rel_ci] table directly? I notice also there is the ability to at least from the child application service to indicate the parent application service as a tab on the application service form.  I notice the list of options for parent application service doesn't display the full list of application services to link things that way.  I'm assuming it does not appear in the list if the parent app service is already a mapped application service. 

Would be great in addition to an explanation in some cases to provide a quick video demo of the practice of doing some of these things. 

[Richard29]

An example of this that would be real. 

1.  Application service 1:  is a Power BI Report Server application test environment service.  It has an application Power BI Report Server CI that is built on a windows server

2. Application service 2:  IS an SQL Server Database test environment .  It has an application SQL Server 2019 installed and built on a windows server.  

3.  Application service 1 is dependent on application service 2.  I want to make service 1 the parent of #2, but I can't because once i link the associated CI's to the application services they are no longer available for selection on that "parent application CI's" tab. 

[Barry Kant]

Good day Richard,

technically there are 3 ways to relate indeed:

cmdb_rel_ci relations in line with the picture in Willems post (there are a few more options from SPM)
svc_ci_assoc relations are relations between a Service parent and a CI child (not a service). This Service can be any class extended from the cmdb_ci_service table. 

Beside those 2 options you have references, eg: a parent reference in Service Offering to a Service.

svc_ci_assoc is used 2-ways:

1 - via Service Mapping --> ITOM capability

2 - via Dynamic CI Groups --> eg used to group/map CIs matching a query and relate them towards Technical Service Offerings.

Keep in mind not all logic will use all 3 options of these relations

Dependency view: Standard is using cmdb_rel_ci. But you can create mapped items which can be shown if you start from this parent CI. 

Impact Analysis: Standard this is using the cmdb_rel_ci  to lookup upstream impact. OR this can use the svc_ci_assoc to check via Service Map. There are system properties to manage. The logic does not both. 

Examples:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ia-I5Kcuvg 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wD-E5IBzys

Cheers,

Barry

[Richard29]

Thanks Barry.

I've used this table svc_ci_assoc  to map relationships between the appliction service and the associated CI's. 

I want to map the dependencies between the application services.  I understand the type of relationship is "depends on", but i'm unclear about the specific mechanics of doing this inside of servicenow. 

I've opened up the cmdb_rel_ci relations table to map the relationship with dependencies between the application services with depends on as the type by adding records directly to that table.  

What I found interesting was, why isn't it possible to use the the "parent application service" function on the application service form to pick these services? What i've found is that those services no longer appear valid for selection once an application service has a CI mapping approach designated.  E.g. in my example used the manual method to pick one CI.  Once I did that it no longer appears as an option in that parent application service list. 

The only way i can currently add that relationship that i can see is manually adding it to the table.  Is this a bug on the application service form?

Separate note:  those example video's provide exellent overview of what you should be building out conceptually with those examples, but they are missing the concrete how to steps of building out those example models in servicenow. 

Comments on the example series which are great by the way but i think they are missing an important dimension:  

Here is how you add the application service
Here is how you add the business application
Here is how you add the CI's
Here is how you map the dependencies between CI's 
Here is how you map the dependencies between application services and the CI's
Here is how you map the application service dependencies to each other
Here is how you map the business application to the associated application services
Here is the recommended practice and order to do these things. 

The actual how-to do this step through is missing on some of these examples.  It would be overkill to do it on all of them but at least one or two that can be references in the video would be extremely helpful. 

[Barry Kant · Accepted solution]

Hi Richard,

for a manual exercise the best I can give is to navigate from the CSDM menu in the navigation.



1 - Here is how you add the application service

This is a somewhat special UI where the relationships to:

• Business Application
• Technical Service Offering
• Business Service Offering
• Application Service

Is done via listbuilder

2 - Here is how you add the business application

via the CSDM menu (Business Application)
3 - Here is how you add the CI's

Preferable via a discovery solution (no manual updates)

4 - Here is how you map the dependencies between CI's 

preferable via a Service Mapping solution (no manual updates). If not then it requires a proper Application Modelling exercise.

5 - Here is how you map the dependencies between application services and the CI's

see question 1 (2nd step --> next)

6 - Here is how you map the application service dependencies to each other

See question 1

7 - Here is how you map the business application to the associated application services

see question 1

8 - Here is the recommended practice and order to do these things. 
nowlearning 

when using the CSDM Menu for application services make 1 example, and check the outcome on the cmdb_rel_ci table. If you understand what it does you can make a cmdb_rel_ci xls to do a upload that will be faster in the end.

hope this helps 

Barry

[Richard29]

@Barry Kant Thanks for that workshop deck.  It's a really good intro to that level of detail.  There really is so much to cover. Even with all the detail there are parts where you couldn't cover it all.  

Extra follow-up to this might be breaking down some of the individual pieces into small video's 

like Here is how you create a dynamic CI group for an application service and map to your application service.