CSDM implementation stage — Crawl

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  • Updated March 12, 2026
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    Summary of CSDM implementation stage — Crawl

    The Crawl stage of the Common Service Data Model (CSDM) implementation focuses on establishing foundational CMDB data primarily associated with IT Service Management (ITSM). During this stage, you work on key base-system CMDB tables that support Incident Management and Change Management, while also preparing your CMDB for advanced capabilities such as Application Portfolio Management (APM), DevOps integration, Service Mapping, and Technology Portfolio Management (TPM).

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    Key Features

    • Core CMDB Tables: The stage involves configuring and populating essential tables including Business Application [cmdbcibusinessapp], Mapped Application Service [cmdbciservicediscovered], Application [cmdbciappl], Server/Host (discoverable), Agile Development Component [cmdbcisdlccomponent], and Service Instance [cmdbciserviceauto].
    • Logical Configuration Items (CIs): Some CIs, such as business applications and service instances, are logical rather than operational and require association with product models to support a product-centric management approach.
    • Discovery Integration: The Application [cmdbciappl] table is populated automatically by Discovery and represents discoverable instances of applications running on hosts; manual entry is not recommended.
    • Support for ITSM Processes: The data prepared here provides the minimum CMDB support required for Incident and Change Management processes, ensuring accurate and reliable data for operational use.
    • Foundation for Advanced Capabilities: Completing this stage sets up your environment for faster and more effective APM setup, DevOps visualization and management through Agile Development Components, Service Mapping for entry point identification, and TPM risk management.

    Key Outcomes

    • Enables Incident and Change Management with foundational CMDB data that aligns applications and services correctly.
    • Facilitates faster APM deployment by ensuring business application data is correctly positioned within the CMDB.
    • Supports DevOps by populating Agile development components that relate to business applications, improving pipeline visualization and management.
    • Prepares Service Mapping capabilities by populating service instance data for accurate mapping of application entry points.
    • Builds the groundwork for TPM by capturing risk details related to business applications’ underlying technologies.
    • Enables identification of outdated or at-risk software leveraging APM, Service Mapping, and Software Asset Management (SAM) Professional data.

    Practical Guidance for ServiceNow Customers

    Focus your initial CSDM implementation efforts on correctly populating and associating the core CMDB tables mentioned above, especially the Business Application, Agile Development Component, and Service Instance tables. Use Discovery to maintain the Application table to avoid manual errors and ensure accuracy. Recognize the distinction between logical and operational CIs and link logical CIs to product models to align with product-centric management practices. By doing so, you establish a robust CMDB foundation that supports core ITSM processes and enables your organization to leverage advanced ServiceNow capabilities effectively.

    In the Crawl stage, you work on base-system CMDB tables that are associated with IT Service Management (ITSM).

    Benefits of the operations that you perform in the Crawl stage

    • The operations provide the minimum CMDB support requirements for Incident Management and Change Management.
    • Setting up APM is faster because your business application data is in the correct place in the CMDB.
    • The operations build the foundation for using DevOps because your Agile development component data is populated and ready to relate to your applications.
    • Service Mapping is ready to use for mapping entry points because your service instance data is populated.
    • The operations build the foundation for using TPM risk details, a capability of APM.

      The operations prepare you to manage and monitor the life cycles and versions of the underlying technologies of the business applications in your enterprise.

      The data enables you to identify outdated or at-risk software using APM, Service Mapping and Software Asset Management (SAM) Professional.

    Tables that you work on during the Crawl stage

    Important:
    Future products and product enhancements depend on the data that you prepare in each of the tables.
    During this stage, you work on the following base-system CMDB tables:
    • Business Application [cmdb_ci_business_app] table
    • Mapped Application Service [cmdb_ci_service_discovered] table.
    • Application [cmdb_ci_appl] table (discoverable)
    • Server/host (discoverable)
    Note:
    Some of the classes that you implement in this stage are logical CIs. Logical CIs aren’t created through Discovery, so their Model ID values might not refer to product model (application model, service model, or software model) records. To help you to migrate to a product-centric management paradigm, each instance of a logical CI should be associated with a product model. See Auto-generate product models for logical CIs.

    Tables that you work on during the Crawl stage.

    Start by focusing on applications and the application-related data in these areas and tables:
    Business Application [cmdb_ci_business_app] table

    A business application is a base-system CMDB table that stores your inventory, application portfolio, and their metadata.

    Note:
    Because this table holds conceptual data, not operational CIs, it is not used by ITSM Incident Management, Problem Management, or Change Management processes.
    Agile Development Component [cmdb_ci_sdlc_component] table

    An AGILE DEVELOPMENT component is a CI that represents a unique development effort of code. It represents parts of a larger business application or digital product broken down into its individually developed components. In other words, the AGILE DEVELOPMENT component is a software element of a larger application or technology. AGILE DEVELOPMENT component CI records in the AGILE DEVELOPMENT Component [cmdb_ci_sdlc_component] table enable the DevOps product to provide enhanced capabilities for visualizing and managing your application development pipeline.

    The table represents the software part or element of a larger whole for applications and infrastructure. Related material may serve as representative of developmental details. It can be used if you must identify the stratification of a business application or digital product.
    Note:
    Because the table holds logical data, not operational CIs, it is not used by ITSM Incident Management, Problem Management, or Change Management processes.
    Service Instance [cmdb_ci_service_auto] table (formerly Application Service table)

    The service instance is typically the system that a caller identifies when they report an issue with an application.

    A mapped service instance is a base-system CMDB table that identifies the related business application in use. The service instance ties all the elements of the CSDM together where applications are present.

    You might have several service instances representing each deployment based on the environment (development, QA, production) and location or geography (North America, Asia Pacific).

    Because service instances are logical in nature, they should use the Logical life-cycle value pairs. Service instances follow the same life-cycle guidance as any other logical CI.

    See Use Service instance (Application Services) dashboard to monitor health.

    Application [cmdb_ci_appl] table

    An application is a base-system CMDB table that represents the discoverable instance of an application: code related to a process in use on a host. This table isn't an inventory of your applications. Because of the high level of complexity involved, don't try to manually populate the application table. Discovery creates and maintains this table.

    Important:
    The application table [cmdb_ci_appl] isn't an inventory or portfolio of your applications. Don't make the mistake of storing managed application details in the application table. Those details (inventory or application portfolio objects) belong in the business application table (as documented in Design & Planning domain in the CSDM model).

    The application might be identified as the root cause of an incident. However, if you're not using Event Management, the application might not be the initial cause.

    If you're using Discovery, applications are automatically related to their host, which provides an impact hierarchy from server-to-host applications.