Single Database or Multiple Databases?

[grussell1]

Hello,

There seems to be some confusion surrounding a ServiceNow instance and the database(s) involved.

Is the instance truly one large database with views or   with all Incident, Problem, Release, Change, Asset, and Configuration management different database instances?

From what I see once can have Asset Management without Incident, Problem, Release, Change, or Configuration management components and the same can be said for all components.

This is what we are thinking:

We will be implementing the ServcieNow product, that is a given.

However, we want to work three different paths at the same time.

We want to implement an asset management and procurement process, but we do not want all of the assets to be in our CMDB.

We also want to implement our CMDB, but we want to start with our top five critical application and related systems. Some of these components will be in Asset management and some will not so we don't want to depend on Asset management to be available. I understand that Asset management and Configuration management are related, but are two totally different components in ITSM.

The third path is that we want to work toward the event management ServiceWatch, but again if the CMDB is required we will wait until we have the CIs populated in the CMDB before we attempt ServiceWatch.

So, long story short, are the databases for the modules in ServiceNow separate database instances on one ServiceNow instance?

Our direction will depend on the answer(s) and the options we have.

Thanks for your assistance.

[Aaron40 · Accepted solution]

I'm not going to say I'm an expert here but the terminology I always hear are "tables". Tasks is a table. Incident is a table that's just extended. The CMDB is a whole hodge podge of tables. I'd have to assume that these are all part of one database, just with infinite tables. That's not saying ServiceNow only has one table on an instance (it probably has a bajillioninfityplustwo databases (or a few less) but what you're dealing with are tables, not the database.

Unless someone knows I'm wrong- in which case please correct me!

[marcguy]

Correct Aaron, all that the 'plugins' do, are extend the database with new tables and fields as they are activated.

George, the approach you are taking is correct, phase it in, release modules at a time, don't try to conquer the world in phase 1 etc... all those cliches

[grussell1]

Thank you for your response. It is as I expected and I have since conveyed this information to the ITSM team. We will be phasing these three components in each at their own time.

[grussell1]

Thanks, that is what I thought also, but we can still go down the path of running procurement, CMDB, and event management as sub projects on the same or different   schedules.