CMDB Data Attributes for Service Offering

[Kelli Fellows]

We are maturing our Service Offerings.  Are there standard data requirements for service offerings in CMDB?  We are in a crawl phase, so I am looking for the minimum viable data to start. Thanks!

[Fabian Kunzke · Accepted solution]

Hey Kelli,

The short answer is no. But i will try to give you my best answer on this topic.

First, what is an actual Service Offering, especially compared to a service. Think of it as a accurate stage. I like to compare it to a menu in a restaurant. Your service is the menu, your offering is the menu item (Note: This as some limits, so don't dive too deep into this analogy).

Based on that, your service offering needs 2 things: A service it is connected to and also a understandable, ideally unique name (having a naming concept in mind for this is always a good idea).

Further, the service offering should also have an owner (someone who is responsible for it) and i would also recommend having a support group in place (Note: The support group is automatically inherited by the service itself - so is the owner). And as with menu items in a restaurant menu, everything else depends on your needs. Most also place a business criticality on offerings to differentiate between what's important and what isn't.

Next steps:

- Setting availability (who is it available to) to make sure users can only report on what they are allowed to use

- Setting commitments (availability etc.)

- Relationships to service instance (how is it delivered)

Hope this helps guiding you towards a good baseline. As always with CSDM, start simple, complexity will follow on its own.

Regards,

Fabian