CMDB process
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4 hours ago
Hello,
I want to learn the CMDB process in ServiceNow : how to define and owning the process, maintaining and developing the Configuration Management plan, the CMDB data model, and associated rules, in line with ServiceNow CSDM 4.0.
So, if you have some use case / scenario, please share !
Thanks,
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3 hours ago
Hello @yasserbouat ,
https://learning.servicenow.com/lxp/en/pages/now-learning-get-certified?id=amap_detail&summary_id=79...
https://learning.servicenow.com/lxp/en/credentials/certified-implentation-specialist-data-foundation...
If this helped to answer your query, please mark it helpful & accept the solution.
Thanks
Santosh.p
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3 hours ago - last edited 3 hours ago
- Configuration Management Database (CMDB).
- What is CMDB?
- Configuration Management Database (CMDB) Welcome Guide.
- What is a common service data model (CSDM)?
- Configuration Management Database (CMDB) Fundamentals On Demand (University)
- CMDB Implementer (University).
- Certified Implementation Specialist -Data Foundations (CMDB and CSDM) Exam - Mainline Blueprint (University)
- Curated list of resources to learn about CMDB and CSDM
- #ServiceNow CMDB / CSDM - Foundation for other Processes.
Defining and Owning the CMDB Process
The CMDB (Configuration Management Database) process in ServiceNow is the foundation for managing IT services and assets. It involves creating a single source of truth for all configuration items (CIs) and their relationships. To successfully define and own this process, you need a clear strategy and dedicated ownership.
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Process Owner: A designated process owner is crucial. This person is responsible for the overall health and success of the CMDB. Their role includes defining policies, approving changes to the data model, and ensuring compliance. This isn't just a technical role; it's a strategic one that requires collaboration across various IT teams.
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Stakeholder Buy-in: Gaining buy-in from key stakeholders—such as IT leadership, service owners, and application teams—is vital. Without their support, data accuracy will suffer, and the CMDB's value will be limited. This buy-in can be achieved by demonstrating the tangible benefits of a healthy CMDB, like faster incident resolution and improved change management.
Maintaining and Developing the Configuration Management Plan
A Configuration Management Plan (CMP) outlines the scope, objectives, and governance of the CMDB. It should be a living document that's regularly reviewed and updated.
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Scope Definition: Clearly define what CIs are in scope for the CMDB. Not everything needs to be a CI. The focus should be on CIs that are critical to delivering IT services. This might include servers, applications, networks, and business services.
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CI Lifecycle: The plan must define the lifecycle of a CI, from its creation (e.g., when a new server is provisioned) to its retirement. This ensures that the data remains current and accurate.
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Data Governance: Establish rules and procedures for who can create, update, and delete CIs. This includes defining data standards, naming conventions, and validation rules to maintain data integrity.
The CMDB Data Model and Associated Rules (CSDM 4.0)
The Common Service Data Model (CSDM) is ServiceNow's standard for organizing CIs and their relationships. CSDM 4.0 provides a structured approach to mapping IT components to business services. Adhering to CSDM is essential for leveraging ServiceNow's full capabilities.
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Application Services: A key concept in CSDM is the Application Service, which is a logical representation of a deployed application. For example, a "Production Email Service" is an Application Service that is supported by underlying CIs like servers, databases, and network devices.
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Logical vs. Physical: CSDM separates the logical components of an application (like the application itself) from the physical components that support it (like a server). This distinction helps in understanding the dependencies and impact of changes.
Use Case / Scenario: Onboarding a New Application
Let's walk through a common scenario using the CSDM 4.0 model: onboarding a new business application called "Sales Portal."
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Define the Business Service: First, you'd create a Business Service CI called "Sales Portal." This CI represents the service from a business perspective and is linked to a business owner.
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Model the Application: Create an Application Service CI for the "Sales Portal." This is the logical representation of the deployed application. This is where you'll link the service to the actual IT components.
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Identify and Link Underlying CIs: You then identify the underlying CIs that support the Sales Portal. This might include:
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Servers: A web server and a database server.
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Databases: A specific database instance.
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Application: The deployed application software itself.
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Map Relationships: The CSDM model is all about relationships. You'd establish relationships like "consumes" or "depends on" between the Application Service and its supporting CIs. For instance, the "Sales Portal" Application Service depends on the web server CI and the database server CI.
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Enforce Rules: As these CIs are created and updated, automated rules and policies (e.g., discovery jobs, data validation scripts) ensure that the data is accurate and adheres to the defined naming conventions and CSDM standards.
- ServiceNow has published CSDM2.0, 3.0 and now 4.0 - Common Service Data Model, above slide is showing how products / modules are connected process that is or should be supported to CSDM/CMDB model.
- New draft white paper just released -> Draft White paper for CSDM 4.0
Get familiar with CSDM through the ServiceNow channels - foundation for your ServiceNow Implementation, as this impacts all the modules.
- Concept Common Service Data Model conceptual model | ServiceNow Docs
- Tables -> Common Service Data Model-to-Configuration Management Database (CMDB) mapping (servicenow.com)
- Relationships -> Configuration Item relationships in the Common Service Data Model (servicenow.com)
- CSDM - Rome - Release notes
- CSDM - Community - get your questions answered
CSDM Use-cases
- Concept Common Service Data Model product views (servicenow.com)
- APM Business Capability, Busines Application, Information Object (TOGAF)
- APM/GRC Business Application Risk Assessment (requires APM License)
- INC Incident Management
- CHG Change Management
- SPM Service Portfolio Management
- ITOM Health Event Management
- ITOM Visibility Service Mapping, Discovery
- Service Graph Service Graph - addition to Service Mapping / Discovery
- SC Service Catalog
- CSM Customer Service Management
Videos
- Intro CSDM in a NUTShell
- Platform CSDM Platform Examples
- Microservices CSDM Microservice Example
- Tech/Compute CSDM Technology and Computing
- Cloud Computing CSDM Cloud Computing Example
- Groups/Roles/Teams CSDM Groups, Roles and Teams
- Service CSDM 4.0 Technical vs. Business Service
- CSDM4.0 Whats new CSDM4.0
CMDB is such a vast topic that it is quite time-consuming to find the right resources to learn about it or to find some information related to it. In this article, I have collated a wide variety of useful resources related to CMDB and CSDM.
1. ServiceNow website
Following are resources from the ServiceNow website will give a lot of insights about CMDB, its benefits and best practices:
https://www.servicenow.com/products/it-operations-management/what-is-cmdb.html
Customer Success Center - Resources for CMDB and Discovery
CMDB design guidance whitepaper
2. NowLearning courses
Following are the key Nowlearning courses to learn about CMDB and CSDM in-depth:
Common Service Data Model (CSDM) Fundamentals
Partner Pre-sales: IT Operations Management (ITOM) Accreditation Path (Xanadu Release) (Pre-sales course for ITOM product which includes sections related to CMDB)
Following are additional recommended courses on Nowlearning to learn about products which populate the CMDB:
Discovery Fundamentals On Demand
Service Mapping Advanced On Demand
Service Graph Connector Essentials
Agent Client Collector Essentials
3. Now Create Assets
Following are key assets available on Now Create. It is important to always check Now Create for the latest relevant assets related to any topic which you are working on:
Plan your successful CMDB deployment
CMDB - Customer Workshop Preparation
CMDB - Identification and Reconciliation
CMDB - Service Graph Connectors
CMDB - PreWorkshop Readiness Kickoff
CMDB - Lifecycle Stage and Status
How does my CMDB impact Vulnerability Response?
Populate and maintain your CMDB with Discovery - Success Playbook
CSDM Workshop - Getting Started
How do I model and manage my services with the CSDM
4. ServiceNow Community articles
Following are a list of useful articles from the ServiceNow community related to CMDB and CSDM:
4.1 CMDB
What's New in the CMDB and CSDM for the Xanadu Release
The CMDB for AI Transformation: A Snapshot of What's New in the November Store Release
CMDB Health Dashboard – Best Practices and FAQs
Service Graph Connector for Azure - Overview
Tanium Service Graph Connector
Scoring in New CMDB Health Dashboard
Service Graph Connector for AWS - Functional Spec and CI
SG-SCCM Service Graph Connector
Dynatrace Service Graph Connector
New Data Model in CMDB for APIs
Service Graph Connector for AWS - Introduction
Platform: Configuration Management Database (CMDB) || Knowledge & Troubleshooting Resources
Troubleshooting Service Graph Connector Performance Problems
AppDynamics Service Graph Connector
Service Graph Connector for GCP - Introduction
Creating a CMDB Integration: Video Series
Video: Use IRE and IH-ETL for non-CMDB data ingestion
Large AWS Landscape Tuning and Troubleshooting
Service Graph Connector for AWS - Diagnostic Tool & Troubleshooting Issues
Best practices for CMDB Data Management
5 Steps to Monitor CMDB Health Proactively
CMDB - 3 Pillars to Successful Data Foundations
4.2 CSDM
CSDM 4.0: (any) Status attribute vs. Life cycle
CSDM 4.0 Life Cycle: How to implement it?
Video: Free application - CSDM Explorer
CSDM -> Using the Service Builder
Migrating into CSDM identifying table dependencies
Converting an Application Service from Top Down to a CSDM Application Service
5. YouTube URLs
The official ServiceNow data foundations channel can be accessed from the URL below which contains a lot of videos about CMDB and CSDM:
Data Foundations - CSDM, CMDB and Service Graph (ServiceNow Community Channel)
Following are URLs for a few other useful videos about CSDM:
CSDM 101 wrap and 2025 digital products
ServiceNow CSDM Masterclass: Insights & Best Practices from +35 Implementations
ServiceNow CSDM 5 - Strategic Forecast & Analysis
6. Important store apps
Following are URLs for some of the important store apps related to CMDB. Among these, 'CMDB and CSDM data foundations dashboards' is a free plugin that is recommended for all types of organizations as it gives important insights about CMDB data quality and CSDM alignment.
CMDB and CSDM data foundations dashboards
Now Assist for Configuration Management Database (CMDB)
Service Graph Connector for Microsoft SCCM
Service Graph Connector for Microsoft Azure
Service Graph Connector for AWS
Service Graph Connector for GCP
Service Graph Connector for Microsoft Intune
Service Graph Connector for Jamf
Service Graph Connector for Qualys
Note: There are many different Service Graph Connectors. The URLs given above are examples of some important connectors.
7. ServiceNow support KB articles
Following are URLs to access various KB articles on topics related to CMDB:
Customers not able to modify the homepage of the CMDB Workspace/CMDB 360
What is a particular CMDB field for?
CMDB workspace not available after installation of application/plugin
Troubleshooting Unified Map in CMDB Workspace
CI Class manager fails to load
Service Graph Connector Landing Page
CMDB Class search is restricted from manually entering terms
Does the cmdb_read role need a license?
Business Rules are not triggered on creating/updating CIs
"Is Virtual" flag is not set for virtual machine CI record
Unable to see CI IPs in related list
Create New CMDB CI page lists duplicate CI Classes (Interceptor/Wizard)
CMDB Health Dashboard Score Card Explained
CMDB Health Dashboard - Overall Health Scorecard Widget not showing any scores
CMDB Health Dashboard : CMDB Health Result in Domain Separated Environment
[CMDB Health] Roles required to view/update the CMDB Health Preferences/Properties
Task is not created for a failed CMDB health test
CMDB Health Dashboard - How to Exclude cmdb health results whose source is "Cloud Discovery"
CMDB Health Dashboard shows negative values
Required field remediation task records are being created by users
Unable to add "Recommended Fields" Under Completeness for "Business Applications " Table
CMDB Health - Duplicate Metric algorithm
CMDB Health - Stale tasks are not created
CMDB Remediation rule - Staleness - How to automatically close the task
CMDB health Dashboard: "Relationships not compliant with suggested relationships" calculation
Adding more than five (5) relationships in a CMDB health orphan rule is not allowed
How to determine if orphaned records exist in the asset table
Identification and Reconciliation Fundamentals
Purpose of 'Exclusion List' Module (svc_baseline_exclusion) under Identification/Reconciliation
Identification Engine MISSING_DEPENDENCY error
CI identifiers will not match with CI's which have 'duplicate of' field populated
How to build an Identification and Reconciliation Engine payload
How to capture IRE [identification and reconciliation engine] debug logs
[CMDB IRE] How to run the CI identification on demand using the payload
Datasource precedence rules ignoring Discovery Source and System-based fields
Datasource precedence not enforced when CMDBTransformUtil used in import set
CMDB QUERY BUILDER "Load all results" not working
CMDB Query Builder : the "Load More Results" button does not load more records
Can the CMDB query builder be replaced by Database View
CMDB Query Builder Results [cmdb_qb_result_base] access
CMDB Query Builder results not including sys_id in the generated URLs on the page
Query Results for CMDB Query Builder
Removing CMDB CI relationships
Queries on CMDB Relationship Editor
Experiencing issues when querying cmdb_ci.discovery_source = 'duplicate'
CMDB reference search from Non CMDB filter is using contains filter instead start with
Turning off Audit on CMDB Relations
[CSDM] How to make cmdb_hardware_model_lifecycle available for the CMDB users as well
Removing CMDB CI relationships
CMDB dependency view doesn't show all relationships
Few components are not visible in Dependency view for different users
How to stop cascade deletes in CI relations
Relationship not loading on computer CI records
Relationship between Service and Application and between Applications in CMDB
[CMDB-CI Relations Formatter] Set the default levels for the CI Relationships on the CI form
CMDB CI Relationships are not visible on the Load Balancer Service Record after successful discovery
Relationship not loading on computer CI records
Delete of a CI "xyz" is not allowed because of a reference in record "abc"
All about Dependent CIs management
CSDM/CMDB Data Foundations Dashboard - No Records to display
CMDB Data Foundations and CSDM Data Foundations Dashboards are not showing any data or are empty
Following are URLs to access various KB articles on topics related to CSDM:
Documentation on what is changing for Common Services Data Model (CSDM)
[CSDM] How to make cmdb_hardware_model_lifecycle available for the CMDB users as well
[CSDM/CMDB UI Page] How to restrict access to $csdm_app_service
[CSDM] - Unable to create Application Service using Manual Method
Application service severity is incorrect
Error while converting Manual to Application Service
"Convert to Application Service" button in cmdb_ci_service table
Can we add new fields to $csdm_app_service.do page when loading an application service
Post button is missing from the work notes section on application services
Custom field in "cmdb_ci_service_discovered" table does not apper in Application Services form
Manually created application services does not display the CI relationships in the map view
A Business Application doesn't load the Related Items
Business Application Request cannot be approved - approving does not close Request
Technical Services: View Result - "No records to display"
Technical service is not being displayed in Service Owner Workspace
UI action Refresh Impacted Services works on affected CI also displays the technical services CI's
Troubleshooting: CSDM Data Sync for Technical Service Offerings (TSO)
Business service - Cannot create new business service as the 'new' button/action is missing
Stuck Business Service / top down Discovery and update logic Business Service Status Scheduled Job
Alerts are not showing on business services
How to capture outage information in Business Services
Floating/Hanging CI's in a business service
Business Services Status widget in Service Portal is not showing all services
Why is Business Services auto created by System User
Business Service (cmdb_ci_service) records are not visible in the instance
Duplicate are being allowed for Number field in Business Service class
What is the "All" Business Service Group CI in the CMDB, and can I delete it?
The "New" Button Is Not Visible On Business Services List After New Roles Added to List Control
Service Owner Workspace - Not showing any Service Offerings
SLA not triggering for "Service Offering" SLA
How to configure Service Offering SLA with Service Commitment?
Service Offering is not showing under Digital Portfolio Management > Run tab > Offering Breakdown
Missing outage and availability data in Service Offering Workspace
Service Offerings subscribers "Available for Subscribers" - Service Catalog Item/Order Guide
How to update Total subscriber field on a Service Offering
Service offering SLA is not getting attached to the Requested Item record
Service Offering Related list is not available on Product/Service Model form
Cannot view a Catalog Item that is associated with a Service Offering
service offering SLA is not getting attached to a record when start conditions match.
Error while adding Service Offering to a Catalog Item or Record Producer
Catalog Item not visible in catalog when added to "Available for Subscribers" of a service offering
Service Builder: Creating a new offering returns "Bad Request (400)"
Service Builder is not loading properly and has internal error (500)
Dynamic CI groups missing Service CI
[CMDB] Dynamic CI Group "View CMDB Group CIs" does not work
Is it possible to increase the limit of Dynamic CI group to show more than 10K records?
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3 hours ago
Hi @yasserbouat
Please go through:
Overview of CMDB
https://www.servicenow.com/community/common-service-data-model/csdm-4-0-any-status-attribute-vs-life...
CMDB - How to maintain the Configuration items ( CIs )relationships - Support and Troubleshooting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gE7AKgPU6oc
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/best-practice-aligning-servicenow-cmdb-csdm-approach-eamonn-mccormick...
And suggested by @tiagomacul and @SP22
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If my response solves your query, please marked helpful by selecting accept as Solution and Helpful. Let me know if anything else is required.
Thanks,
Prerna
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2 hours ago
If you want to learn about CMDB and CSDM process, below playlist and articles could be helpful.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkGSnjw5y2U7QNr9jL6TAgwQvYBI_LEtK
https://noderegister.service-now.com/kb?id=kb_article_view&sysparm_article=KB0831512
In addition to this, you can go through now learning courses and documentation. You can find vast resources from Now Create if you have access to it.
https://learning.servicenow.com/nowcreate
As per community guidelines, you can accept more than one answer as accepted solution. If my response helped to answer your query, please mark it helpful & accept the solution.
Thanks,
Bhuvan
