Best practices for CMDB data management in ServiceNow (2024)

Configuration Management Database (CMDB) is a repository which can be used to store and manage information about an organization’s IT infrastructure. CMDB acts as a single source of truth that tracks the data for devices, services, applications, etc. used by an organization (considered as configuration items or CIs) and the relationships between the various CIs. The presence of a mature and accurate CMDB is essential for various business functions like IT service management, IT operations management, IT asset management, compliance and risk management, cybersecurity, etc.

Setting up of a CMDB should NOT be considered as a one-time implementation project. It should be an ongoing program which is sponsored at the executive level, managed & governed by dedicated teams, and supported by stakeholders across the organization. Lack of such an ongoing CMDB program would result in inaccurate, poor quality and outdated data in the CMDB. This would in turn lead to various negative consequences like reduction in IT service quality, increased possibility of outages, compliance risks, increased costs, delayed decision making, inefficient management of assets and services, cybersecurity risks, loss of employee and customer trust, etc.

ServiceNow is a platform that helps enterprises digitize their business operations by offering solutions in a variety of areas such as IT service management, IT asset management, IT operations management, customer service management, employee experience etc. An accurate and properly maintained CMDB is essential to maximize the value realized from the various ServiceNow offerings.

Following are some important action items and features to consider for keeping the ServiceNow CMDB data clean, correct, and up to date:

1. CMDB Scoping

Discuss with all important stakeholders like configuration managers, service owners, application owners, asset managers, etc. to ensure that only the CI classes and attributes that support any of the organization’s business objectives (E.g., IT service management or IT asset management) would be populated and maintained in the CMDB. Avoid populating data for any other tables and attributes, even if the data is available from various sources.

2. Data population

Following are some of the key aspects to consider for CMDB data population in ServiceNow:

• Maximize automation: Data population should be automated as much as possible in order to enhance the usefulness and accuracy of the data. It also helps to reduce the manual efforts needed to populate and manage the data. The different ways to automate the data population are ServiceNow discovery, Service Mapping, Agent Client Collector, and integrations with third-party applications.
• Identification rules: The purpose of identification rules is to identify the presence of already existing CIs during the CMDB data population. If the CI already exists, the existing record is updated. If the CI does not exist, a new one is created. Hence proper definition of identifier entries is important to reduce the possibility of creating duplicate CIs. For all the CI classes in scope, review the current CI identification rules. The identifier entries should be modified after considering the unique attributes from the data sources which you are using or planning to use for various CI classes. If the OOB identifier entries are found to be sufficient for some of the CI classes, there is no need to make any changes for those classes. Refer the following URL for more information: https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/washingtondc-servicenow-platform/page/product/configuration-manag...
• Reconciliation rules: For the CI classes which are populated by more than one data source (e.g., Discovery and SCCM integration), make sure to configure reconciliation rules. This is to define the priority of each data source for the population of data in CI classes (including the priority for specific attributes within the CI classes). The purpose is to make the more trusted data source as higher priority in order to prevent the overwriting of data by a less trusted data source. Refer the following URL for more information: [CMDB — Reconciliation or Data Precedence Rules] Understanding the CMDB Reconciliation Rules and tro…
• CMDB Integrations: Service Graph Connector is the recommended method for integrations with any 3rd party tool (e.g., SCCM, Jamf). The data populated via integrations will go through the identification and reconciliation engine (IRE) only when the service graph connector method is used. Then only it will consider the identifier entries defined for each CI class to identify existing CIs and update those. If service graph connector is not used, additional customizations would be required to force the integration to follow the IRE (so this method should be ideally considered only for integrations with any tool that does not have a service graph connector currently available). The following URL has more information about service graph connectors: https://www.servicenow.com/products/service-graph-connectors.html
• CMDB bulk data imports: Make use of integration hub ETL for any manual bulk data imports to populate the CMDB. This method will follow the IRE and consider the identifier entries for each CI class while populating the data. Normal data load through import sets and transform maps will not consider the identifier entries defined for CI classes while populating. Refer the following URL for more information: https://www.servicenow.com/community/cmdb-articles/integrationhub-etl-introduction/ta-p/2301028
• CSDM alignment: Ensure alignment with Common Service Data Model (CSDM). Make sure to follow the CSDM framework and guidance while populating data like business services, application services, technical services, business applications etc. and their relationships. Understand the various domains and tables mentioned in CSDM 4.0. This will guide you to populate the data in the right tables. Discussion with multiple stakeholders will be required to fully understand and finalize where to put different types of data. The CSDM 4.0 conceptual model indicates the most important stakeholders who should be typically associated with each domain. Refer the following URL for more information: https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/washingtondc-servicenow-platform/page/product/csdm-implementation...
• Asset-CI Synchronization: Configuration management is closely interrelated with asset management. Hence it is important to keep the CMDB and the asset repository in sync. i.e., The CI/Asset status and the data in all the common fields must be kept in sync for all the devices which are tracked as both assets and CIs. Refer the following URL for more information: https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/washingtondc-it-asset-management/page/product/asset-management/co...

3. Data maintenance

• Set up proper access rights: Access levels to CMDB should be configured so that access to modify the CMDB is restricted only to the relevant stakeholders like configuration managers, configuration analysts, service owners, application owners, etc. CI class owners should be given access to modify the data only for the CI classes which they manage. The configuration of access rights should be ideally done as part of the initial implementation of CMDB to reduce the possibility of unauthorized and inaccurate data updates.
• CMDB health dashboard: Configure the CMDB health metrics (Correctness, Completeness and Compliance) for the most important CI classes. This will help to track the health scores on the CMDB health dashboard for those CI classes and then take actions to improve the data quality (e.g., By remediating duplicate Cis). Refer the following URL for more information: https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/washingtondc-servicenow-platform/page/product/configuration-manag...
• CMDB and CSDM data foundations dashboard: This is a plugin which can be activated for free. After activating, go to ‘CMDB health dashboard’ to view insights about areas where you can improve the CMDB data quality. Go to ‘CSDM data foundations dashboard’ to view insights about your CSDM alignment status and how to improve it. Both the dashboards have URLs to access playbooks against each metric. The playbook will describe the importance of each metric and the steps which we can take to improve the metric scores. Refer the following URL for more information: https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/washingtondc-servicenow-platform/page/product/configuration-manag...
• Audits and Data Certification: Leverage the ‘Data Certification’ functionality for periodic manual verification of important attributes in key CI classes. This is particularly important for CI classes and attributes which are maintained manually. Also, perform periodic manual audits of data in various classes to validate the data quality. The frequency of each data certification task and manual audit activity should be determined based on the inputs from the configuration manager and the CI class owners. The following URL has more information about data certification: https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/washingtondc-servicenow-platform/page/product/data-certification/...
• CMDB Data Manager: Old and outdated data should be archived after a pre-defined data archival period (e.g., 2 years after retirement) and deleted after a pre-defined data retention period (e.g., 5 years after archival). Archiving and deleting the data is required to keep the CMDB clean and relevant. It also helps to avoid potential performance issues while accessing data in tables with too many records. Attestation is important to physically verify the actual existence of CIs by appropriate users. The CMDB data manager helps to define policies related to archiving, deleting and attestation. Refer the following URL for more information: https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/washingtondc-servicenow-platform/page/product/configuration-manag...

4. Configuration management process

CMDB data management should be supported by certain aspects defined in the configuration management process, like roles and responsibilities related to data management, archival and retention periods, audit frequency, interaction with other processes (e.g., data sync with asset management, CMDB data updates as part of change management), access rights to modify and read the CMDB etc.

Conclusion

An accurate and up-to-date CMDB acts as a powerful foundation for streamlined IT operations. It promotes informed decision-making, allowing organizations to proactively address potential issues and minimize downtime. By following best practices for CMDB data management, businesses can enhance service quality, reduce operational costs, reduce various types of risks, and gain a clear understanding of their IT infrastructure’s impact on overall business goals. In short, a well-maintained CMDB translates directly to increased efficiency and improved business outcomes.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashok-sasidharan