@Daniel Carvalho,

For identifying micro-service specific applications, we added a custom field for app type and indications if it were a batch app, traditional monolith, micro service, etc. We found that to be the easiest way. I'm pretty sure there is OOB field for app type, but we had this app type field prior to (I think it was Madrid?) that the cmdb_ci_business_app table came out of box.

I can see where you are coming from with regards to the pain of having to manage not only the business applications but also the underlying instance and how the instances grow exponentially. I too would love to see greater integration and automatic syncing occurring between the two tables. It would really help cut down on effort needed to keep the business app and related instances in sync. That said, we did develop a script to automatically update the Support and Approval group fields which has helped. I think there is also new functionality with Madrid that helps to automate syncing between Services and their Service Offerings (inheriting the "owned by", "Service Classification" and a few other fields). I would imagine similar functionality could be re-used for syncing the Business Application record and the Application Service. We call the Application Service the Application Instance or Run time to help reduce confusion.

My interpretation of the CSDM is that the Application Service (cmdb_ci_service_discovered) is the top level table for all individual run times of the application, discovered or not. There are child tables underneath that indicate whether it was manually defined or defined via tag based vs some other mechanism.

You're making a lot of sense with the RPA Robots treated like a batch job. For example, robot1 has a prd, dev and qa version of it, we would see robot1 (prd) with the new environment field = prd, robot1 (dev) with environment = dev, and robot1 (qa) with environment = qa with a dependency between the individual app instance and the robot that it is using.

Now to add some complexity to the whole situation:

There is significant interest by our senior leadership in tracking the availability and performance (think Service Portfolio Management) of these micro-services. Now per the CSDM, that information is tracked at the Service/Service Offering level. Per ITIL, a service is what is provided to an end customer for consumption, and the offering is the stratification of that service based on localities in which it was consumed, or different Service Level Agreements (SLA's) for that service (gold/silver/bronze). Based on my interpretation of the CSDM, we would not only need the micro-service as a business app record, the application instance (runtime) records, but also the service offering. But is this really where the industry is headed?

Is there industry interest in tracking the availability and performance of micro-services or is everyone more focused on the higher level service that is being provided such as authentication, trading, shipping, etc?

Hi Alex

Indeed! If the SRO set the tone, this video on examples made cristal clear.

Microservices, for all due effects, are applications, just small. But keep track on new doubts I will present Mark. Once those are posted, I will link them here.

Cordial

Following on: https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_question&sys_id=7885f26a1b683c50fc3233bc1d4bcbae