What is the purpose of the CMDB Initiator Group (cmdb_ci_initiator_group) class?

[SyedBurhanJamil]

Hello Community,

I am trying to understand the CMDB class "Initiator Group" (cmdb_ci_initiator_group).

I can see records being populated in this table through storage discovery, but I have not been able to find detailed ServiceNow documentation explaining the purpose of this CI class.

Could anyone point me to official documentation for this class?

If documentation is not available, could someone explain:

1. What an Initiator Group represents in ServiceNow CMDB?
2. In which storage technologies or discovery patterns it is typically used?
3. What relationships are usually expected between Initiator Groups, Storage Controllers, Volumes, Hosts, or other storage CIs?

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

This class appears to be related to storage discovery, but I would like to better understand its functional purpose within CMDB.

Thank you.

[Dr Atul G- LNG]

The CMDB Initiator Group (cmdb_ci_initiator_group) class in ServiceNow is used to represent a logical grouping of users or systems that initiate changes, events, or interactions within the CMDB context.

In practical terms, its purpose is:

• To identify and group “initiators” (who or what starts a process such as a change, discovery activity, or integration-triggered update).
• To help track the source of CI updates or activities for governance and traceability.
• To support integration and automation scenarios, where actions are triggered by a defined system/user group rather than a single individual.
• To improve auditability and reporting, so you can understand which group initiated updates or changes to configuration items.

In short, it’s mainly used for control, traceability, and ownership of actions that affect CMDB data, especially in automated or integration-driven environments.

[Tanushree Maiti]

Hi @SyedBurhanJamil 

The cmdb_ci_initiator_group class represents a logical grouping of Storage Area Network (SAN) initiators used in block storage arrays. It is primarily populated by ServiceNow Discovery during horizontal discovery for enterprise storage systems like Dell EMC XtremIO.

Refer :  https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/it-operations-management/discovery-and-service-mapping-patterns/xt...