Where do you start with CSDM (Common Service Data Model)? What’s the big hoop-la about CSDM.
First, CSDM is not something that you rush into! It’s done in stages for a reason.
CSDM is about getting data alignment and service modeling framework that enables:
- Accurate CMDB relationships
- Consistent reporting and visibility
- Strong foundation for APM, ITSM, ITOM, ITAM, and CSM
Determine your business outcomes: Visibility, Service Health, Portfolio, AIOps readiness. Then tie metrics so you can measure success. For example, CMDB health greater than 85%.
Second, take inventory of what you already have.
- CMDB contents: What’s populated? What’s trusted? Do you have any gaps?
- Discovery coverage: Are your infrastructure CIs well managed?
- Service catalog: Do you have catalog items tied to offerings or not?
- Applications: Are business apps managed in APM or just in spreadsheets?
- Customizations: How far from baseline are your core tables?
CSDM Data Foundations Dashboard can help baseline your maturity across key domains.
You might be saying, I just work in ITSM, or ITOM, why do I care about these other groups and what they are doing? Answer: because the platform is connected! We need ITOM to provide CMDB data for ITSM or APM. APM supplies business application data that connects to the CMDB that’s used by ITSM. And so on across the platform.
Let’s get started, but where!? Foundations. The foundation stage focuses on OOB referential tables: company, business unit, department, locations, groups, users, CMDB group, product models, and contracts. The foundation phase's main objective is to establish a solid groundwork for accurate reporting and data management. This means defining essential terms and categorizing data elements within the CMDB.
The drawing below shows the current CSDM version. Across the bottom is where you can see foundational data and who owns what data.
Part two will start at the Crawl phase.
