We’ve seen a lively discussion lately in our Community forums now that ServiceNow CSDM 5.0 is now available. As a risk or compliance professional, why should I care?
One simple answer: Common Service Data Model (CSDM) is the backbone, the foundational layer for a successful implementation, adoption, and value realization of your ServiceNow products. It brings together data and systems that often sit in silos, making it easier to drive real value from your investment.
How does it do that? The CSDM is a standardized framework across our ServiceNow products and platform. Because it supports multiple configuration and management strategies, you can use it to define your organization’s IT services and their connections to business processes and technology across the organization.
For risk and compliance, a CSDM isn’t just helpful—it makes true visibility and coordination possible.
The value of the natively connected data in a CSDM unlocks multiple benefits. Once you make data connections within the CSDM, you can better assess potential risks, analyze the impact severity of a control failure or incident, ensure the right mitigation strategies are in place, and prioritize risk responses.
For example, having a CSDM gives you visibility into the enterprise-wide impact of mandates such as the EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA). How will DORA affect our risk and compliance posture in areas such as Operational Resilience, Business Continuity Management, Third-Party Risk Management, and Integrated Risk Management? The CSDM enables you to proactively and consistently manage your response to DORA in multiple areas, so it is consistent across teams.
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CSDM 5 is here! Get the CSDM white paper on our data model guidance and much more!
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The CSDM provides a clear structure for organizing data to gather more accurate risk assessments across the enterprise. Some examples of how you might use a CSDM in a risk environment are:
- Risk identification and mapping – If a critical business application is dependent on a specific server, the CSDM helps visualize this relationship. You can see the relationships between IT services, business processes, and infrastructure components. You can more easily assess the impact of hardware failures or security vulnerabilities on business applications.
- Impact analysis – If a network component is scheduled for maintenance, the CSDM can help determine which services and business processes are affected. You can proactively assess the potential impact and ensure mitigation strategies are in place to minimize the disruption.
- Automated risk assessment – When issues arise for critical services and applications based on their dependencies, you can prioritize response efforts accordingly. For example, if a critical security vulnerability is discovered, the CSDM can help you quickly identify which services and applications are at risk based on their dependencies.
- Operational resilience reporting – By aligning operational resilience reporting with the CSDM architecture, resilience data can be rolled up seamlessly from assets to business processes, service offerings, and services. This alignment improves the speed, visibility, and effectiveness of operational resilience team to deliver faster insights and more effective responses.
The CSDM complements the Configuration Management Database (CMDB), a base layer that stores information about IT assets and their relationships. The CSDM adds a clear and organized view of the connections within this environment, enabling highly effective risk management practices.
For more information, consult these resources:
- CSDM Hub in the ServiceNow Community
- CSDM – conceptual model
- Understandig CSDM
- Migrating to CSDM
- CSDM in ServiceNow product documentation
- Top Features of CSDM 5: What You Need to Know - ServiceNow Community
- CSDM 5.0 What’s New from Knowledge 2025CSDM and CMDB Executive Overview
- CSDM 5 Finally!!! Get the CSDM 5 White Paper HERE - ServiceNow Community
- Most impactful changes in CSDM 5.0 - ServiceNow Community
- CSDM 5.0: Mapping between service instance and pro... - ServiceNow Community
- Getting help with your CSDM from our Impact team
