Domain separation explained

  • Release version: Washingtondc
  • Updated February 1, 2024
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Domain Separation Explained

    Domain separation, also known as ServiceNow multitenant platform architecture, allows service providers to segregate application data, user interfaces, and business logic within a single customer instance. This separation supports specific hierarchies for all customers, enhancing efficiency, security, and performance, although it requires careful management due to added complexity.

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    Key Features

    • Data Separation: Ensures tenants only access data relevant to them, with the option for controlled access to other tenants' data.
    • UI Separation: Customizes tenant-specific user interfaces, allowing branding and UI adjustments while maintaining core process logic.
    • Business Logic Separation: Enables creation of tenant-specific policies, enhancing tailored functionality.
    • Hierarchical Modeling: Facilitates nested tenant structures, allowing parent tenants to manage child tenant resources.
    • Cross-Tenant Intelligence: Manages data and processing context across tenants with appropriate access.

    Key Outcomes

    Implementing domain separation provides service providers with a robust multitenant architecture that enhances client offerings through strict governance, centralized administration, and adherence to universal process standards. This structure ultimately leads to improved service delivery and operational efficiency.

    With domain separation, you can segregate application data, UI, and business logic, such as rules or workflows, in a single customer instance. Separating these elements into logically defined domains supports specific hierarchies for all customers using your applications.

    Domain basics

    Domain separation, also known as ServiceNow multitenant platform architecture, adds considerable overhead to the management of an instance. If you use domain separation correctly though, it can improve efficiency, add greater security, and increase the performance of your customers' instances.

    You can't separate some global standards and properties, such as system properties and table schema, per tenant.

    Before you start separating domains, read the following guidelines.

    What you can do with domain separation

    • Data separation: Enables tenants of the domain to see only data that they have permissions to see. Tenants can be granted access to other tenant data but can't query tenant data that they don't have access to.
      • When you update data records, they do not generate Update Set records.
      • Users, including the customer accounts that are used for integrations, see only the data in the domains they have permission to access.
      • Customers, agents, and fulfillers see data that pertains to the customers and organizations that they support.
    • UI separation: Supports a tenant-specific experience for UI elements such as views, lists, labels, and so on.
      • You can override the browser-based user interface, including application menus, lists, forms, and dashboards. You can also customize them for a specific domain or set of domains while preserving your basic process logic.
      • Service providers can alter the displayed branding and UI elements to meet individual customer needs.
    • Business logic separation: Creates tenant-specific system policies such as email notifications, business rules, client scripts, UI policy, and UI actions.
    • Hierarchical modeling: Nests your multiple tenants so that parent tenants can access child tenant resources. Business logic for parent tenants runs automatically for child tenants, which you can override at any level.
    • Cross-tenant intelligence: Automatically handles data, metadata, business logic, and processing context for tenants with access to additional tenant data.

    Domain separation at a glance

    The following graphic shows the division of data, process, and UI separation. These concepts are discussed in depth in the Recommended Practices section.

    Types of domain separation

    Domain architecture

    User records are assigned a domain value that represents the user’s home domain. Users have no access to data in parent domains, peer domains, or domains in other branches of the hierarchy.

    See Contains queries and domain access for advanced options to grant additional domain visibility.

    The following diagram shows how the architecture process flows down to the child domains. Process flows down Data rises up