What is the difference between "Hardware Model" & "Product Model"?

[Vance1]

Can anyone tell me the intended use of each? When I look in the product documentation for Product Model it says "Create a record for a type of product that your company sells and supports." When I look at the documentation for Hardware Model it says "On a hardware model record, you can add compatible hardware models. This is a good method for tracking hardware assets that can work together." I'm really looking for a more detailed intended use for both of these records. Can anyone help?

[rlatorre]

Hardware is a type of Product Model (cmdb_hardware_product_model). You can many types.

[Vance1]

Thanks for your reply, While you are correct that hardware is a type of Product Model, it is not the only place in ServiceNow that hardware assets are stored. In the screenshot you provided, you are in the Customer Service Management application (Customer Service > Products > Product Models). When I referred to "Hardware Model" in my original post, that is located in the Product Catalog (Product Catalog > Product Model > Hardware Models) which automatically publishes to the service catalog. If you click on the links in my post you can see what I mean.

However, my question still stands, "What is the INTENDED use for each?"

[jake_mckenna · Accepted solution]

Product model is just a base table that is leveraged to be extended into multiple subtables or child tables that you will be populating. This is the same concept you see in other areas of the Platform such as   cmdb_ci or task has child tables were your data is stores and the core table is where you create common attributes used.

Hardware models are where information about the items in your environment would be contains such as Desktops or Server models. Sources such as SCCM or ServiceNow Discovery, to name a few, might be building these items for your or utilizing models you create to aggregate on common attribute that might be the same for any CI/Asset the is that model. Normally here we might add in attributes around form factor or end of life to help with tracking the lifecycle of models.

The other aspect of hardware models is the idea of publishing them to the Product Catalog to be leveraged in a End user catalog and allow someone to request a particular model or item. These concepts are best integrated with another plugin called Procurement that allows your Procurement team source based on what is potentially in stock or generate a PO directly in ServiceNow.

Perhaps take a look at this blog post on many aspects and concepts that can be covered in model management. Role Model, or Why Model Management is Important