Domain separation and Software Asset Management

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated March 12, 2026
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Domain separation and Software Asset Management

    Domain separation in Software Asset Management (SAM) allows ServiceNow customers, particularly service providers and large organizations, to logically separate data, processes, and administrative tasks into distinct domains. This separation ensures secure, isolated management of software assets across multiple tenants or subsidiaries within a shared ServiceNow instance. It supports multi-tenant environments by providing complete data and process separation along with tenant-specific administrative controls.

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    Key Features

    • Data and Process Separation: Since the Paris release, both SAM data and processes are domain-separated, enabling independent management within each domain.
    • Multi-Tenant SAM Lifecycle Management: Manage the full software asset lifecycle for multiple customers in a shared instance without data leakage.
    • Role-Based Access Control: The samintegrator role provides the ability to create and modify SaaS integration profiles but requires careful assignment due to cross-domain visibility of OAuth application registry records.
    • Configurable Logging: System properties allow configuration of detailed logs for domain-separated scheduled jobs to aid in monitoring and troubleshooting.
    • Tenant-Specific Business Logic: Tenants can customize business logic and data parameters (e.g., priority matrices) safely without affecting others, supporting minimum viable product (MVP) configurations.
    • Support Levels: Enhanced support level includes all basic and standard domain separation capabilities, plus UI-based, fail-safe business logic modifications by tenants.

    Benefits for Service Providers

    • Expand service offerings by including SAM as a managed service.
    • Provide comprehensive SAM services such as contract and entitlement management, discovery, normalization, software reconciliation, optimization, licensing expertise, audit response, lifecycle and vulnerability reporting, and license management.
    • Maintain tenant data isolation while delivering centralized SAM management.

    Benefits for Customers

    • Access to expert-managed Software Asset Management services within a shared ServiceNow environment.
    • No need to manage the underlying platform or SAM processes.

    Implementation Considerations

    • Avoid customizing the base system domain configuration record to maintain best practices.
    • Use required plugins like Domain Separation Extension, Performance Analytics Domain Support, and Software Asset Management Professional to enable full functionality.
    • Additional plugins such as Service Catalog Domain Separation, Procurement, Cost Management, and Contract Management support integrated asset and financial processes.
    • Be aware of domain separation impacts on software lifecycle reporting and plan accordingly.

    Domain separation is supported in Software Asset Management. Domain separation enables you to separate data, processes, and administrative tasks into logical groupings called domains. You can control several aspects of this separation, including which users can see and access data.

    Support level: Enhanced

    • Includes all aspects of Basic and Standard levels of support.
    • Data-driven process enables service provider customers to modify business logic that is based on defined use cases. These configurations are UI-based and fail-safe so that configurations by one customer cannot affect another.
    • Tenants of the instance must be able to configure minimum viable product (MVP) business logic and data parameters for themselves. This logic and parameters would be expected for the application's normal function.

    Sample use case: Tenant-customers of a shared environment must be able to modify the impact, urgency, or priority matrix to set priority within their domain.

    For more information on support levels, see Application support for domain separation.

    Domain separation support

    Domain separation in Software Asset Management enables service providers to offer managed Software Asset Management services to their customers. It also enables large organizations to manage their subsidiaries as independent domains.

    With multi-tenant support for Software Asset Management, you can manage the entire Software Asset Management lifecycle for your customers in a shared ServiceNow instance. This model provides complete data and process separation between tenants, along with tenant admin support.

    Service provider benefits

    Multi-tenant support for Software Asset Management offers the following benefits to service providers:
    • Expand the service portfolio to include Software Asset Management.
    • Offer Software Asset Management as a service to your users that includes:
      • Contract and entitlement management
      • Discovery and normalization reporting
      • Software reconciliation, optimization, and licensing expertise
      • Audit response
      • Software lifecycle and vulnerability reporting
      • SaaS license management
      • Engineering license management

    Customer benefits

    Customers gain the following benefits when a service provider manages their assets on the shared ServiceNow instance:
    • Access to established Software Asset Management services and processes delivered by domain experts
    • No platform or process ownership required from the customer

    How domain separation works in Software Asset Management

    In Software Asset Management, domain separation occurs in two stages: data separation and process separation. From the Paris release, both data and process are domain-separated.

    Any user with sam_integrator role has access to create and modify the SaaS integration profiles. Since users with this role can also access the Oauth application registry (currently not domain-separated, so records across all domains are visible), this sam_integrator role should be assigned with caution. The user should be in the service provider organization and satisfy high permissions criteria.

    To view logs for domain separation, create a system property named asset.log_level and set its value to debug, trace or info. The level you set determines which logs appear when any scheduled job that extends the AssetManagementBaseJob scheduled job runs.

    In a domain-separated instance, the content data service (CDS) should populate data in the instance with domain set as global.

    Note:

    Avoid customizing the base system domain configuration record. For more information, see Recommended practice.

    Diagram showing how a service provider manages the IT Asset Management lifecycle for multiple tenant customers in a shared ServiceNow instance, with complete data and process separation between tenants

    Required plugins

    • Domain separation extension (com.glide.domain.msp_extensions.installer)
    • Performance Analytics – Domain Support (com.snc.pa.domain_support)
    • Software Asset Management Professional (com.sn_samp_master)

    Other supported plugins

    • Service Catalog – Domain Separation (com.glideapp.servicecatalog.domain_separation)
    • Procurement (com.snc.procurement)
    • Cost Management (com.snc.cost_management)
    • Contract Management (com.snc.contract_management)

    To learn more, see Domain separation explained, Contains queries and domain access, and Importance of Default domain.