Relationships between CSDM objects

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Relationships between CSDM objects

    This guide explains how to configure and manage relationships between various Common Service Data Model (CSDM) objects such as business services, service offerings, business processes, and application services within ServiceNow. These relationships are essential for accurately mapping dependencies and service structures in Operational Resilience, enabling effective reporting and impact analysis.

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    Key Features

    • Main node configurations: Used to establish and manage relationships between CSDM objects. Configuration relies on the sngrcm2mprofileprofile table as the source.
    • Entity relationships: Support relationships between business services, service offerings, business processes, and application services, including dependencies.
    • Dependency mapping: Dependencies such as underlying components (e.g., servers or applications) linked to business processes or services can be defined and visualized.
    • CI relationships table: All configuration management database (CMDB) relationships are stored in the cmdbrelci table.
    • Integration with Operational Resilience: Entities must be set up in Operational Resilience to enable relationship establishment and data synchronization for reporting.

    Practical Application

    For example, a business service (BS1) can include service offerings (SO1, SO3), business processes (BP1, BP2), and application services (AS1). Service offerings and business processes have dependencies such as specific servers or application services. When configured correctly:

    • The Applies to field in a Business Impact Analysis (BIA) reflects accurate dependency relationships.
    • Parent-child relationships, like a service offering’s parent being a business service, are automatically fetched and maintained through scheduled jobs.
    • The same relationship types can be applied across multiple forms, enhancing flexibility in modeling service dependencies.

    Key Outcomes

    • Establishing these relationships enables comprehensive visibility into service and process dependencies, critical for impact analysis and resilience planning.
    • Accurate data synchronization with Operational Resilience ensures that risk assessments and reporting reflect the true state of service dependencies.
    • Streamlined management of relationships improves the quality of CMDB data and supports better decision-making around service continuity and risk mitigation.

    You can configure relationships between various CSDM objects such as business services, service offerings, business processes, and application services by using the Main node configurations. The [sn_grc_m2m_profile_profile table] serves as the source table for establishing these relationships.

    Establishing relationships between different objects

    To illustrate the relationships between different CSDM objects, consider the following example of a business service (BS1).

    The business service (BS1) includes the following objects as shown in the example.
    • Service offering (SO1)
    • Business process (BP2)
    • Application service (AS1)
    • Service offering (SO3)
    CSDM objects.
    The Service offering (SO1) is related to the Business process (BP1) and Service offering (SO2). BP1 has the following dependencies:
    • Acer
    • PS Apache01

    BP2 has a dependency on PS Apache02. AS1 has a dependency on AS2 and AS2 has a dependency on PS Apache03.

    Note:
    When you set up the Main node configurations, you must ensure that the entities are set up in Operational Resilience. Only when these entities exist, relationships can be established between the CSDM objects and then data is brought into Operational Resilience for reporting.

    The Applies to field in a business impact analysis (BIA) shows the object that has the dependency. The example shows that the business process (BP1) has Acer as a dependency.

    Applies to field.Dependency.

    The dependency is also brought from the Parent field into Operational Resilience for the service offerings and application services. For example, the parent for service offering (SO3) is business service (BS1). Therefore, when the scheduled job is executed, it fetches SO3 as a configured relationship for business service (BS1).

    SO.

    All the CMDB relationships, as shown in the example, are maintained in the CI relationships [cmdb_rel_ci] table.

    CI relationships [cmdb_rel_ci] table.

    To bring these relationships into Operational Resilience, you must use the Main node configurations. For more information, see Configure the Main node configurations.

    You can establish the following relationships between objects such as business services, service offerings, and business processes.

    Table 1. Establishing relationships
    Entity Relationships
    Business services
    • Service offering for a business service: BS -> SO1, SO2
    • Business process for a business service
    • Application service for a business service
    • Dependencies for a business service
    Service offerings
    • Business process for a service offering
    • Application service for a service offering
    • Dependencies for a service offering
    Business processes
    • Application service for a business process
    • Dependencies for a business process

    The same relationship can be applied and used on multiple forms. For example, the business process relationship can be used on both Business service and Service offering forms.

    For information on the Main node configurations, see Main node configurations: A component of the Data Relationships Framework.