CSDM 5 Finally!!! Get the CSDM 5 White Paper HERE

[scott_lemm]

How do you measure 4 years since CSDM 4?

Two million, one hundred two thousand, four hundred minutes

Two million, one hundred two thousand, four hundred CSDM guidance so dear

It has been a long time coming for CSDM 5. We have laughed together, we have cried together, in some instances we have broke bread together. Your feedback has lead to an epic release of CSDM 5 which is an incremental and expanded version from the CSDM 4 model. We introduce new model graphics, a new Domain, expanded data model, greater understanding, and SO MUCH MORE...

Preliminary reviews are favorable:

"This is the best version of CSDM that I have read (I've been reading them since v2)"

"I laughed, I cried, it was better than Cats"

"It makes me happy!" (us too)

The CSDM 5 white paper is provided as updated data model guidance for digital transformation. The Common Service Data Model is a framework across our products and platform.  The CSDM 5 guidance will enable and support multiple configuration and management strategies. Additional resources will be provided beyond this white paper including but not limited to videos, example use cases, and reference blue prints. 

It has been a long journey to CSDM 5. Thank YOU for joining us along the way. 

[TedN]

Finally! 🙂

[Holger Buchner]

Wohoo, waited since last knowledge, where Mark Bodman showed a slide. 

[GracePetrucci]

Thank-you Scott!

[mikesisson]

I know what I will be studying for the next week.  Also will look forward to whomever created the one pager with all the definitions.... not sure if there will be enough room now that we have the additional domains.  Maybe a one pager with the Model and then a summary by domain and key distinctions would be good for the "One Page CSDM"?

[GusPosadaFlorez]

Let’s Get Ready to Rumble!!!

[peter_hanaeus]

Just downloaded, let the  hype be real!

[Maja Katarina]

Amazing work! Thank you for providing this!

[Fredrik v S]

It would be great if Figure 17 was provided without the overlay (green boxes) in the whitepaper @scott_lemm 

It is all there in parts, but the full picture would be great to have visualized and delivered as a Visio or Lucidchart (and not only as a picture in a pdf).

[strahinjast]

Finally! and again, that business processes are finally there!

[Chris A - UK]

Interesting that in the previous drafts we had Digital Product in place of Business Applications, but it's back as Business Applications now. I have to admit I thought Digital Product made more sense in widening the scope and making it a bit clearer.

[RichieP]

+1 to @Fredrik v S ask, that end-to-end data model diagram would be HUGELY useful.

otherwise, a great doc going in to really good detail on approach and use cases, thanks!

[Steve Socha]

Congrats to the CSDM team on their launch!

Are the Additional Material hyperlinks on page 61 disabled for everyone? I tried clicking on the underlined links on multiple devices, but they just appear to be blue text.

[AntoniyaK]

Thank you! Can we get the hyperlinks enabled in section "Additional material", please. Thanks.

[Oanh K Nguyen]

Thanks @scott_lemm, is there a demo environment that we can get the actual view of the model?

[Alex_Dundon]

Scott and team,

Thank you so much for publishing this CSDM 5 white paper. I, and clearly many others, have been waiting with baited breath for months, if not years for this. I would like to take a moment and acknowledge the amount of time, effort, and herding of cats that was necessary to put this together. It is a remarkable achievement that sets all of your clients, as well as internal product teams on the same page on how to define and use the various CI classes. 

I do have some questions and identified minor grammar changes:

1. What is the Life Cycle Stage/Status definition of "Operational/Pending Fulfillment" for both the Tangible and Intangible CI entities? You seemed to define everything else which is greatly appreciated, but missing that one definition.
2. Figure 16 p48 (as its numbered in the white paper): Why change the defined relationship type between Business Apps and Service Instance from Consumes::Consumed by (this was defined in CSDM 4) to Uses::Used by, but in the explanation, it says Enterprise Architecture (EA) has a dependency on relationships, such as Business Application "consumes" Application Service".
3. Figure 16 p48, why is a Business Service referenced to Business Service Offering as "Published as"? It's not a valid out of box relationship type. There is the "Parent" field of the service offering
4. This might be a Yokohama specific item, and not related to the CSDM, but why can't we bulk update CI's Life Cycle Stage/Status in the list view? I recognize that the values need to be connected, but why not have the same functionality as State/Substate on the Asset (alm_hardware) table when updating in the list view? You can update both at once

Grammar/formatting items:

1. P7 of whitepaper: "What is new in CSDM5?" section, bolded e in "introduce", should be unbolded
2. P39 of whitepaper: "Connection Service Instance" section, "Network Infrastructure Cis" should be CIs (capital I)
3. P45 of whitepaper: Top of the page, there should be a line break between the 2 paragraphs for consistency
4. P45 of whitepaper: Business Service section, Business Service should be capitalized for consistency
5. P55 of whitepaper: "What is the value of the Walk stage? the walk stage..." "t" in "the walk stage" should be capitalized as its the beginning of a sentence

Very gratefully yours,

Alex

[Shaun Brachmann]

Vintage, aged one year since previewed at K24!  

Hurrah!!

[dwilcher]

Incredibly excited for this, but echoing the call to make these data model diagrams, *particularly* Fig 17, available to us as Miro templates, Lucidchart resoures, etc. where they were more easily consumable!

[Adam Domanski1]

Woohoo, bedtime reading instead of lying there wishing I was at Knowledge 😅

[Miklos Palfi]

This version of the CSDM is an unpolished diamond for me. There a lots of great new or refined parts of it and it doesn't break the already used concepts.

• Ideation & Strategy Domain – new domain - great, but it is a victim of simplification in the overview diagram. I miss the goal framework items, backlogs, which are partly there in the detailed description (p.29)
• Software Bill of Material (SBOM) – new capability - great, this is a big focus point for us currently
• System and Software Component Model – new product model - important, also for the SBOM and licensing topic
o Service Offering Model – new product model - service classification attribute is unfortunalety still there.
• Teams – manage multiple contact groups for a CI - I wish this would be more detailed and more mature! Product teams (with hierarchies like agile trains, domains etc.)
• Service Instances – CI classes (model only) - welcome change from application service (instance), further refactoring of the names and structure would be great.

I wish service portfolio would be moved into the CMDB and made an integral part of it. Digital Products should be better represented, and service instance filling simplified. Really looking forward for the Fig 17 release!!
I hope we will get minor versions sooner, maybe with CSDM 5.1 in a year or so and major versions every 2-3 years?

[Alex_Dundon]

After re-reading this white paper for the 4th time, (yes I learn something new every time), I am struggling to understand the rational for how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is addressed in CSDM 5. As the CMDB SME for my organization, I need to be able to explain some of the decisions and the "why" behind things are architected the way they are. So if the hive mind of the community or someone from ServiceNow can help explain it to me, I'd appreciate it. Some specific questions:

1. Why is the cmdb_ci_function_ai table, where AI SaaS based applications are stored, a child of the Virtual Machine Object (cmdb_ci_vm_object) table, and not under the application (cmdb_ci_appl) table, like AI Application? They are not even remotely in the same table hierarchy. Is it due to future enhancements to various ServiceGraph Connectors for various 3rd party platforms to pull the data in and put it in the CMDB? For example, AWS Sagemaker machine learning models.
2. I get the impression that most dependency relationships to an AI model, should be to the Data Service Instance class. For example, a Business Application CI related to a particular AI Service in the Data Service Instance class, and the Data Service Instance would be related to the underlying CIs like AI Application (cmdb_ci_appl_ai_application), or perhaps the AI Function (cmdb_ci_function_ai) CI. Is this the correct understanding?
3. Why are AI Digital Asset, AI System Digital Asset, AI Model Digital Asset, AI Dataset Digital Asset, and AI Prompt Digital Asset all in the alm hierarchy, rather than CI? Is the idea that these asset records are referenced to the CIs in cmdb_ci_appl_ai_application? If so, why wouldn't these items be their own CIs as well?
4. Can you give more context to what the AI System Product Model would be used for? Would it be the Model type that is connected to all the CIs in AI Application and AI Function, or just the models used to connect the AI Digital Asset, AI System Digital Asset, AI Model Digital Asset, AI Dataset Digital Asset, and AI Prompt Digital Asset together?

[Dan Freed]

@scott_lemm are there plans to update the CSDM course on ServiceNow University for CSDM 5?

[Alexander Versh]

Dear Team,

Would it be possible for you to explain "Figure 9. Aggregate CSDM Life Cycle model" in that white paper? I don't understand why there is nothing aggregated under "Build & Integration" domain. 

[andy_now]

Can anyone shed some light on CSDM Life Cycle on pg 19. Does anyone know where this plugin is as I cannot see it anywhere in the store or in my dev instance:

With the introduction of Product Instance 2.0 (PI2.0) in the Xanadu family release, optional activation of
PI 2.0 will eliminate synchronization efforts between legacy configuration item statuses (intall_status,
operational_status, hardware_status) with Life Cycle Stage and Life Cycle Stage Status. Because this synchronization process was problematic and failed to deliver consistently positive user experiences, the
legacy synchronization was eliminated. In its place, ServiceNow implemented synchronization of Life
Cycle Stage and Life Cycle Stage Status between CI, asset, and install base item (IBI) from CSM.
NOTE: Once enabled, PI2.0 will DISABLE any previous synchronization efforts between legacy CI
statuses and Life Cycle Stage & Stage Status on.
NOTE: Disabling PI2.0 synchronization after activation is not a simple exercise and may result in loss of
data. Test PI2.0 in non-prod environments before activation in production environments.

There is also mention of the Business Process to Business Application relationship change that says to use the relationship (spelling error copied for consistancy) 'Operrationalizes::Operationalized by' although that doesn't exist in ServiceNow. Are we creating this relationship or expecting an update from ServiceNow? I don't want to cause duplicate named relationships and have to migrate relationship data down the line.

[SK Chand Basha]

Very helpful!! 

[Florian21]

Hi Scott,

thanks for sharing. I have a question regarding the install base items and sold products. Are this CSM features not part of the CSDM 5 anymore? I thought this will be integrated?

Thanks

Florian

[GarrettB]

So excited to see the improvements in the CSDM 5! I would love to see the image this is behind this image within the white paper. 

[Holger Buchner]

This is the extracted image from the PDF (i can't increase the resolution):

[perumalselvam]

@scott_lemm - Do you have some examples to model the Cloud Platforms (Azure / AWS / Ali Cloud) as an example ?

[Holger Buchner]

@perumalselvam you can refer to the Youtube CSDM Example series collected by @Mark Bodman :

https://www.servicenow.com/community/common-service-data-model/csdm-videos-now-available-on-youtube-...

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkGSnjw5y2U7QNr9jL6TAgwQvYBI_LEtK

https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/quebec-servicenow-platform/page/product/csdm-implementation/refer...

[schorsch]

Hi @scott_lemm ,

the new whitepaper is really great - many important/ good + valuable content. I especially appreciate the more detailed explanations regarding lifecycle stage/ stage status. But seems something is getting mixed up in the explanation of the "Product Life Cycle Definitions" (page 21). The explanation of the stage "Build & Integrate" is missing, but the stage status "Build" is"somehow" getting in the description of the "Design" stage...

Just a short hint for optimization of the doc... 😉

[HY2]

Can you share the links to the Additional materials section of the whitepaper?

[Miklos Palfi]

CSDM 5 WhatsNew from Knowledge 2025

In this video, Scott Lemm and Mark Bodman provide an in-depth overview of the CSDM 5 white paper released during the Knowledge 2025 conference.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFKWxfdPYW8

[Wolfgang Schaa1]

Thank you, Scott and Mark, for CSDM 5 and the great presentation at Knowledge 2025!
I couldn’t attend Knowledge in person, but I watched the YouTube video yesterday—and it was fantastic! The clarity and depth you brought to the CSDM 5 updates—especially the lifecycle framing, value stream integration, and the evolution of the Service Instance model—are incredibly helpful. It’s exciting to see how the model continues to mature and align with real-world service delivery. I’m looking forward to applying these insights at our company!

[Damhoej]

Really a great piece of work.

There might be some debate around PI2.0 and the enablement of this feature 😉

I have a couple of customers that have enabled Life Cycle Mapping and sync, they ask what the implication is when upgrading to yokohama.

[Arno Reintjens]

Hi CSDM Community members,

Does anyone know how/when the System Component Model and the Software Component Model will be available? I can't find any reference to this.

Any comment is really appreciated. 

UPDATE:

I found the update within plugin Data Foundation Model 1.1.0. 

The next search will be to look how SAMpro will start making use of the Software Component Model class. Again if anyone knows, leave me a comment. If I find it, I will update this comment.

Cheers,

Arno

[Damian3]

Is this right or a Typo in the diagram ?- Current (v4.0) it's "Consumes" as the text below implies

[james wells]

 

Fredrik v S

Mega Guru

a month ago

It would be great if Figure 17 was provided without the overlay (green boxes) in the whitepaper @scott_lemm 

It is all there in parts, but the full picture would be great to have visualized and delivered as a Visio or Lucidchart (and not only as a picture in a pdf).

...search for the pptx from K25 Lab3541, which will give you the above image and you can edit/delete the overlay boxes 

[james wells]

It would be great if Figure 17 was provided without the overlay (green boxes) in the whitepaper @scott_lemm 

It is all there in parts, but the full picture would be great to have visualized and delivered as a Visio or Lucidchart (and not only as a picture in a pdf).

...search for the pptx from K25 Lab3541, which will give you the above image and you can edit/delete the overlay boxes 

[Arno Reintjens]

Hi @james wells 

You mention to 'search for the pptx from K25 Lab3541', but could you tell me where to search or share the liink?

Thanks,

Cheers,

Arno 

[Miklos Palfi]

@Arno Reintjens Figure 17 is a sneak peek into CSDM 6 as explained by Scott Lemm in the Knowledge 25 video also available on YouTube. The picture is presented there without the overlay boxes.

[Scott Lemm]

50:00 – Sneak Peek at Future CSDM 6 Graphics - Transcript by YouTube:

"There's a lot of business units inside of ServiceNow and we start looking at the overall data model what is that bigger picture and as I mentioned earlier there's the view that we've often provided when it comes to CSDM that doesn't have enough space really to include all of the objects and how they tie together so one of the things we're working for in the future is to provide a new view of the data model and what we show here is a draft we've been working for towards our CSDM 6 that starts to show all the objects and how they come together but more importantly we want you to see how the various products and solutions that we have from Service Now where they fit in on that overall data model and this isn't necessarily everything and we could add more to this overall layer but it starts to give you an idea of that overall model that we have for CSDM for the future where do the various pieces come together and what uses it and it starts to give you an idea of where to focus so to speak so if all I want to do is ITSM with some ITOM then there are very specific objects that I need to focus on to accomplish that if I'm going to be doing hardware asset management or software asset management which objects become important for the activity that we're doing so not only are we going to provide a a larger data model in the future with CSDM 6 and replace what we've been using in the past but we also want to make sure everyone understands at that point we'll also be able to help identify how to implement based on what products you have licensed and what you've already populated inside of the overall repository."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFKWxfdPYW8&t=3000s

[SN_Marcel Horn]

Hello @scott_lemm & @David Skowronek,

I´ve recognized that with the ServiceNow Yokohama release / CSDM v5 we are able to create two or more Service offerings [service_offering] with exact the same name.

Is this a correct system behaviour and intended by design?

I ask you because it may lead to confusion when creating two same e.g.: BSO with different Service Owner or Life Cycle Stages.

Best
Marcel

[AustenHarrison]

@Steve Socha, @AntoniyaK, @HY2 Scott has posted an updated version with links for the "Additional Materials" section. Download the file again and all hyperlinks will work. 

[Chris Herrmann]

Really looking forward to seeing this in the real world; in particular the DevOps and SBOM components. This begins to solve a big problem space in terms of API management and related aspects.

Great to see the closer ties with SAM and Vulnerability Management too!

[Arno Reintjens]

Hi all,

In my previous post I mentioned I was looking for the ServiceNow SAMpro upgrade that would implement the SAM discovery into the Software Component Model. According to the YouTube mentioned in a previous chat (50:00) from @scott_lemm this should be published in May 2025 (see picture).

Does anyone know where to find this version?

Cheers,

Arno

[SitrakaF]

Congrats and What a milestone! Can't wait to deploy it 😄 

[Colliu]

Thanks! Do you have a version with higher resolution graphics in it? Or maybe all the graphics in high res separately?

[Ronald Lucas TA]

In the "Relationships in CSDM" section of the CSDM 5 whitepaper on page 48, it doesn't mention the relationship type "Sends data to" from any "Service Instance" to another "Service Instance". Yet CSDM 4 mentions we CAN have "Sends data to" from "Service Instances" to other "Service Instances". However, OOTB there is no relationship type where the "Parent descriptor" is "Sends data to".

Is this a typo in CDSM 4?

CSDM 4

Since CSDM 4 and 5 contradict each other, which one is correct?

[IndianaJones]

@scott_lemm Thanks for all of you hard work on the CSDM. One concept I struggle with when going over the CSDM Data Model examples is how to frame them into real world examples for our support teams. The slides make sense, but what does the "run" phase look like when I fill out an Incident? Will it look different if the Incident is initiated by a consumer vs a technical fulfiller? How will my reporting improve through incidents and change requests as my company progresses from the "walk" to "run" stage?

[mikesisson]

@IndianaJones With the likes of copilot, chatGPT etc I have been leveraging the use of creating playbooks and then feeding that playbook into LLM and then have it instruct me to walk through the playbook and then it records when I am unable to follow the best practice process and it logs the gaps with suggested solutions.

Here is an example of the prompt to create the playbook: (note we are trying to get back to out of box so with our customization I may not know what to expect which is why my prompt is the way it is:

Prompt <As a Major Incident Commander, create a playbook for a major incident based on best practices where there are 2 scenerios, the first one is where the incident is initiated by a consumer and the second where it is initiated by a technical fulfiller.  We are on the Xanadu release and assume we do not have any customization, and are in the xxxx phase of maturity to CSDM.> (you could add more details like if you have event management in place or service mapping etc.)

Then after you have your playbook created, you can run your scenarios in the lower environment by prompting your LLM  <add playbook><Please guide me through this playback and allow me to interact with you based on what I experience and create a gap log along the way with suggested solutions and observations that I can then  use as a reference to deliver to engineers to resolve>

Once you get your desired scenario working as expected according to your maturity phase you could then give this playbook to whomever creates your ATF's for automatic testing if you don't like the out of box tests for Incident.

You could do all the same type of strategy for Problem and Change or any other module where you want to compare your ability to follow best practice.

Let me know how this works for you and how you improve on the prompts and the results you are getting and if this was helpful.  (giving this a helpful thumbs up will encourage me to offer more of these tips if they are of value)

You don't have an LLM at work?  You could run this from your phone and just follow the guidance in your lowers and create a log manually so you don't break any rules of sending this type of data from outside in.  Your basically having a guide instruct you through the process.

Thanks,

Mike

[ravikamma]

Finally read this. Definitely more holistic and much needed additions.

[Aleksey4]

Is there a newer version of "real-life' use cases mapping?

I have one from 2022 with examples of different systems mapped (SAP, Platform1, Adobe, etc.), which was really helpful to get a sense of the concept and fill in the gaps.