Service Delivery domain in the CSDM model
Summarize
Summary of Service Delivery domain in the CSDM model
The Service Delivery domain in the Common Service Data Model (CSDM) represents the complete end-to-end service delivery system. It encompasses infrastructure, technologies, integration patterns, service delivery networks, and operational models that deliver services to internal and external users. This domain enables ServiceNow customers to manage and support operational environments and infrastructure that underpin business applications.
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Typical users include service instance owners and service delivery owners or providers. The domain's tables are populated through Service Mapping and Discovery and enable management of Configuration Items (CIs) and their relationships.
Key Components and Tables
- Technology Management Service and Offering: These tables represent technical services and their offerings, including options such as localization, environment, pricing, availability, and support groups. Technology management offerings are consumable via request catalogs and support service commitments defining service levels.
- Dynamic CI Groups: Dynamically created groups of CIs based on CMDB queries, useful for managing infrastructure components efficiently and supporting patch management and operational visibility.
- Service Instances: Logical representations of deployed systems or application stacks, previously known as Application Services. They form the basis for Service Mapping, monitoring, and ITSM processes. Various service instance types exist, including data, network, operational process, connection, and facility service instances.
- Applications: Discoverable instances of programs or modules running on hosts, supporting one or more service instances. Applications are considered infrastructure CIs and are distinct from business application portfolios.
- Infrastructure CIs: Physical and logical components such as servers, databases, and routers that support service delivery.
Relationships and Lifecycle Management
The domain defines critical relationships among service instances, business applications, technology management services, and infrastructure CIs. These relationships support comprehensive service visibility and management across ITSM, ITOM, Strategic Portfolio Management, and Customer Service Management.
Service instances and technology management services are operational, enabling their use in Incident, Problem, and Change Management processes. Lifecycle states and classifications ensure alignment with organizational service delivery requirements.
Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers
- Enable accurate modeling and management of operational services and infrastructure that support business applications.
- Leverage Service Mapping and Discovery to maintain up-to-date CI data and relationships.
- Use technology management offerings and dynamic CI groups to streamline service consumption, support, and change management.
- Improve service monitoring and health assessment through Event Management integration.
- Support comprehensive service portfolio management with clear linkages between technical services and business services.
Additional Notes
Each CI can be related to only one technology management service or offering to avoid conflicts in SLAs and support commitments. Service instances can be created manually, via discovery, dynamic CI groups, or tagging methods, offering flexibility in service modeling. ServiceNow customers should collaborate with business relationship managers or enterprise architects to align infrastructure components with business capabilities effectively.
The Service Delivery domain represents the overall end-to-end service delivery system that includes the infrastructure, technologies, integration patterns (infrastructure, systems, data, processes, dependency models), service delivery networks, and operational models. Together, these items deliver the services that conform to CSDM to internal and external users and organizations.
Tables in the Service Delivery domain
Users of tables in the Service Delivery domain provide and manage the operational environments and infrastructure that support your organization’s business applications (as developed in the Build & Integration domain). Typical users are service instance owners (for application and platform) and service delivery owners or service providers (for infrastructure and delivery).
The tables in the Service Delivery domain represent the technology that your business sells or consumes in the provider view. Service Mapping and Discovery populate the tables. The tables in the domain also enable you to manage CIs and their relationships. The domain includes the following tables:
- Technology management service (formerly Technical service) [cmdb_ci_service_technical] table. The Service Classification is Technical Service.
- Technology management offering (formerly Technical service offering) [service_offering] table. The Service Classification is Technical Service.
- Request catalog. Technology consumers can request Technology management offerings through a request catalog. Catalogs are described in detail in Service Catalog.
- Dynamic CI group [cmdb_ci_query_based_service] table. Service Classification is Technical Service. Technology management services in Event Management use the cmdb_ci_query_based_service table.
- Service instance (formerly Application service) [cmdb_ci_service_auto] tables. The Service Classification is Application Service.
- For manually-created and Service Mapping: Mapped Application Service [cmdb_ci_service_discovered] table (included in the base system).
- When query-based: [cmdb_ci_query_based_service].
- When tag-based: [cmdb_ci_service_by_tags].
The CIs in this domain are deployed instances of digital products and their related and discoverable components (such as installed applications, servers, and network components) plus documentation of the services that provide and support the deployed instances. The domain also represents the portfolio of Technology management services in use. For more information on life cycles, see Definitions of life-cycle values for tangible/physical CIs.
The services are operational, which means that you can select them for ITSM Incident Management, Problem Management, or Change Management.
Relationships between Service Delivery tables
- Agile development component Contains::Contained by Service instance (optional to use this item).
- Business application Consumes::Consumed by Service instance.
- Service instance (a logical representation of a deployed system or application stack)Depends on::Used by /Sends Data To:: Service instance.
- Service instance Depends on::Used by Application.
- Application Runs on::Runs Infrastructure CIs.
- Technology management service uses a reference attribute to specify the relationship with Infrastructure Technology management offering. Published to service owners and typically underpins one or more business services. A Technology management service may have an operational view made up of one or more Technology management offerings.
- Technology management offering Contains::Contained by Service instance. Stratification of the Technical Service into options, including localization/geography, environment, pricing, availability, capability, support group (INCIDENT), technical approval group (CHANGE) and packaging options.
- Technology management offering Contains::Contained by Dynamic CI Group.
- Dynamic CI Group (a dynamic grouping of CIs, based on results of CMDB Groups queries) uses a related list to specify the relationship with Infrastructure CIs.
- Business Service Offering Depends on::Used by Service instance.
Tables used during the Service Delivery phase of the service life cycle
Tables used during the Service Delivery phase of the service life cycle
AI component tables used during the Service Delivery phase of the service life cycle
API: The API data model is made available within the CMDB to assist in managing your API data. As part of API Insights, you can centralize your management of APls including, but not limited to, viewing API details, comparing APls, identify and resolve data gaps, and manage service relationships. API Function: from a virtual perspective. API Application: From an on-premises perspective.
Al Function: Al SaaS applications deployed on public cloud platforms that offer scalable, on-demand services for machine learning, data processing, and Al-driven tasks. The applications provide flexible solutions without the need for on-premises infrastructure management.
Al Application: Al software applications that can run on various platforms such as Linux, Windows, Docker containers, or Kubernetes (K8) clusters. The platforms support diverse Al workloads, including machine learning models, data analytics, and intelligent services or Al- enabled applications.
Technology management services
Technology management services are associated with service owners and are typically layered under one or more business services or service instances. A technology management service may have one or more technology management offerings.
Users of Technology management services can view and manage the technologies that you provide to the business. Event Management enables you to monitor service performance. You can also use Event Management to identify health issues for related infrastructure CIs and service instances.
Technology management services can be managed as part of the Service Portfolio in the Service Consumption domain (that is, a Service Portfolio hierarchy can be referenced from a Technology management service). This allows for a more complete hierarchy and management of both Technology management services and business services within the Service Portfolio Management workspace and related workspaces. You can make better decisions when you know how spend on Technology management services can improve performance and reliability of your business services.
Technology management offerings
- Level of performance
- Location or geography
- Environment
- Pricing
- Availability
- Capability
- Support group (for incident)
- Technical approval group (for change)
- Packaging options (commitments)
- One or more service commitments
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A service commitment defines the service delivery obligations agreed to between the consumer and the provider. Service commitments uniquely define the level of service in terms of availability, criticality, scope, pricing, and other factors. For example, an organization may offer two levels of support for a service instance:
- Support for a production-level offering: Provides a high level of availability and criticality for production instances. Includes a 24/7, 5-minute response time guarantee (24 hours per day seven days per week).
- Support for a non-production-level offering: Limited availability and criticality for non-production instances. Includes a 60-minute response time guarantee between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday.
- A service offering subscription that records which users have access to an offering
-
A Technology management offering references the Service Categorization attribute in service tables to denote whether a Technology management offering or offering is related to a business service or to a Technology management service. Technology management offerings that are mapped to the [service_offering] table are classified as “technology management service" and are derived from the service. The Technology management offering is based on how the parent serves a specific technical need. Every Technology management service should have at least one Technology management offering.
Important:Each CI associated through a Dynamic CI Group can be related to only one Technology management service or Technology management offering. Conflicts can result when one service includes multiple offerings with different SLAs, OLAs, Support Groups, and commitments.
Dynamic CI groups
- Query-based service instance
-
You don’t have Service Mapping enabled yet, but you have 12 servers and three database instances in MyAppServiceProd. You can replace your spreadsheets with a dynamic CI group as a service instance.
See Use the Dynamic CI Group method to populate application services.
- Managed group of Infrastructure CIs
- The web servers in Detroit are managed by the DetroitRockCity Technology management offering. Instead of manually creating relationships from Technology management offerings to Infrastructure CIs, use a dynamic CI group. A single relationship from your Technology management offering CI (DetroitRockCity) to your dynamic CI Group (web servers in Detroit) gives you the visibility you need.
- A way to manage patches for your CIs
- In Change Management, you can select the dynamic CI group for the CIs you must update and use a business rule to auto-populate the Affected CI field.
Service instances (formerly application services)
Service instance a relabel of [cmdb_ci_service_auto], which previously was called application service.
Application services still exist. They were there as extended tables depending on how you managed that application service.
For manual creation or service mapping, you go into the mapped application service.
For tag-based, it would live in the tag-based application service table. The tables still exist and they are still application services and you're still going to go to the application service wizard to create application services.
- Data service instance [cmdb_ci_data_service_instance]
- Network service instance [cmdb_ci_network_service_instance]
- Operational Process service instance [cmdb_ci_operational_process_service_instance]
- Connection service instance [cmdb_ci_connection_service_instance]
- Facility service instance [cmdb_ci_facility_service_instance]
The Service Instance [cmdb_ci_service_auto] table (formerly Application Service table) supports service instances. A service instance is a set of interconnected applications and hosts that are configured to offer a service. A service instance is a logical representation of a deployed system or an application stack. Using service instances, you can view maps and change history for services. For example, the Event Management application can monitor service performance and identify health issues for service instances.
Service instances can be internal, like an organization's email system or customer-facing, like an organization's website. For example, creating financial reports through a web-based application requires a computer, web server, application server, databases, middleware, and network infrastructure. The applications and hosts are configured to offer the service of financial reporting. A service instance represents an instance of such a business application or system in the development, test, or production environment.
Service instances are the entry points for the Service Mapping feature. Service instances underpin a business or Technology management service and are mapped to the CMDB Service Instance [cmdb_ci_service_auto] table (formerly Application Service table) for common reporting.
Service instances are key relationship entities for IT Service Management (ITSM), IT Operations Management (ITOM), Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM), and Customer Service Management (CSM).
Service instances include relationships between business applications, business services, Technology management services, applications, and infrastructure CIs. You can expose a service instance by using the related business or Technology management offering. For more information, see Use Service instance (Application Services) dashboard to monitor health.
- Data service instance
- Network service instance
- Operational Process service instance
- Connection service instance
- Facility service instance
| Method used to create the service instance | Mapped to table |
|---|---|
| Top Down Discovery (Service Mapping) | cmdb_ci_service_discovered |
| Dynamic CI Group (Query-based) | cmdb_ci_query_based_service |
| Tags | cmdb_ci_service_tags |
| Manual entry, using the Create a Service Instance form (formerly, the Create an Application Service form) | cmdb_ci_service_discovered |
- For more information about service instances and the methods you can use to create them, see Application services and Create a Service instance (application service).
- You can specify required attributes for service instances. For more information, see Modify the attributes and relationships required for application services.
- You can set a relationship between a service instance and the components of other CSDM domains. See Service Mapping.
Applications
An application is any program or module that defines behavior and performs a specific function. Applications are typically discoverable instances and provide a specific set of functions for one or more services.
- The application table and extended tables contain uniquely discovered instances of code in use on the host.
- Applications are considered infrastructure CIs.
- The instance is limited to the applications on a single host. This limitation ensures that applications are uniquely identified during discovery.
- There's a one-to-many (and not a one-to-one) relationship between the application and the service instance. A single installed application, such as a database instance, may support multiple service instances depending on the configuration and the use of the applications.
Infrastructure CIs
Infrastructure CIs are managed physical and logical components. A CI can be a single module, such as a server, database, or a router or a complete system such as a web server, database, or infrastructure.
The underlying infrastructure components or CIs can be complicated. The complexity increases as data structures are layered on top of physical CIs. For that reason, you should work with a business relationship manager or enterprise architect to define your business capabilities and business applications.