Common Service Data Model for Operational Resilience

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Common Service Data Model for Operational Resilience

    The Common Service Data Model (CSDM) in the Operational Resilience application, starting from Release 20.1.x, provides a standardized framework for defining and managing services, business services, and their relationships within ServiceNow’s Configuration Management Database (CMDB). This framework supports accurate configuration of ServiceNow products and applications, ensuring that configuration items (CIs) and their interdependencies are well-organized and aligned with business objectives.

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    Key Features

    • Service and Business Service Management: Enables clear definition and management of services, business services, and interfaces, including support for service offerings and application services, which were not supported in earlier models.
    • Risk and Incident Management: Facilitates identification and management of risks, controls, and incidents to support operational resilience and business continuity planning.
    • Hierarchical Relationships: Uses the Entity Hierarchy table ([sngrcm2mprofileprofile]) to map relationships such as business services connecting directly to service offerings, enhancing data structure and reporting capabilities.
    • Staging Tables and Pillars: The Service Process pillar acts as the parent for staging tables in Operational Resilience, with references to key entities like business services, service offerings, business processes, and application services maintained in the [snoperresprofile] table.
    • CSDM Compliance: ServiceNow AI Platform® products and applications comply with the CSDM, providing consistent access to the underlying data model and improving cross-product integration and functionality.

    Key Outcomes

    • Enhanced Operational Resilience: Organizations can respond and recover faster from disruptions by effectively managing risks, controls, and incidents.
    • Improved Service Management: Clear, standardized service definitions lead to more efficient and effective delivery of services and business services.
    • Informed Decision-Making: Comprehensive visibility into business services, their risks, and controls supports strategic decisions and service optimization.
    • Alignment with Business Goals: Ensures that service quality and management practices align with organizational objectives, supporting business continuity and competitive advantage.

    Practical Considerations for ServiceNow Customers

    ServiceNow customers implementing Operational Resilience should leverage the latest CSDM framework to structure their CMDB data accurately, including new support for service offerings and application services. Understanding the role of staging tables and the Entity Hierarchy table helps in mapping service relationships effectively. Utilizing the CSDM-compliant AI Platform and applications will provide consistent data access across products, enhancing overall operational resilience and service management capabilities.

    Starting with Release 20.1.x, the Operational Resilience application supports the latest Common Service Data Model (CSDM). CSDM is the data framework that administrators use when configuring ServiceNow® products and applications. It ensures that configuration items (CIs) and their relationships are properly defined and stored in the relevant Configuration Management Database (CMDB) tables.

    About Common Service Data Model (CSDM)

    The Common Service Data Model (CSDM) offers a robust framework for defining and managing services and business services related data in Operational Resilience reporting. Implementing this model helps organizations achieve the following objectives.

    • Define and manage services, business services, and interfaces.
    • Identify and manage risks, controls, and incidents.
    • Develop and maintain business continuity plans.
    • Support operational resilience and control environment management.
    • Enable informed decision-making and service optimization.

    This data model ensures that services are of high quality and align with the overall business goals.

    Benefits of CSDM

    The CSDM offers several key benefits for organizations.

    1. Improved service management: By defining and managing services, business services, and interfaces, organizations can ensure efficient and effective service/business service delivery.
    2. Enhanced Operational Resilience: The CSDM model enhances organizational resilience by identifying and managing risks, controls, and incidents, which enables a quick response and recovery from disruptions.
    3. Informed decision-making: By providing a comprehensive view of business services, risks, and controls, the CSDM model facilitates informed decision-making and service optimization.

    These benefits help organizations achieve their strategic objectives, enhance customer satisfaction, and maintain a competitive edge in a dynamic business environment.

    About the Common Service Data Model

    The Common Service Data Model is the standard data model for all products that use the Configuration Management Database (CMDB).

    ServiceNow AI Platform® products, applications, and features are CSDM compliant, meaning they all have identical access to the underlying CSDM data model. This shared access greatly enhances the capabilities of your applications.

    Additional information about the CSDM can be found in the CSDM in a nutshell and Community Forum.

    For the playlist of all the videos, see Playlist of all CSDM videos.

    Highlights of CSDM for Operational Resilience

    The previously integrated data model did not support service offerings and application services. The latest CSDM model now includes support for both service offerings and application services.

    Staging tables and pillars

    The Operational Resilience application uses the Entity Hierarchy table, [sn_grc_m2m_profile_profile], to save hierarchical relationships. For example, if a record has upstream_profile as a business service (BS) and downstream_profile as a service offering (SO), it indicates that the business service (BS) directly connects to the service offering (SO) in the CSDM data model.

    The Service Process pillar is the parent table for all staging tables in Operational Resilience. Other staging tables inherit the profile field from it.

    References for business services (BS), service offerings (SO), business processes (BP), and application services (AS) are added to the [sn_oper_res_profile] table.

    For more information on the tables that are relevant to the CSDM data model, see Tables relevant to CSDM. For information on the pillars, see Pillars overview tab.