In the EMEA region we're working with a major multi-national to generate guidance and examples of how the two frameworks relate. We had to begin by pulling together the most pertinent definitions for each CSDM domain based on NOW documentation. A few domains have names that can be misinterpreted, and have been created as repositories for discovery and monitoring data:
From there we began applying the CSDM hierarchy to the TBM hierarchy with examples.
Would love to receive all your thoughts and input on the following:
That was a fairly straight forward example based on the CSDM services work posted by another company working on their NOW service architecture. Looking at a more complex target (ie. specific offerings within an Application Hosting service), the CSDM requires what TBM would consider "offerings" and potentially "offering sub-elements", to be broken into technical and application service offerings:
This is also based on a published example from an existing NOW customer attempting to apply CSDM to their existing service architecture. As additional clarity, we've started to draft a direct mapping of some of the key TBM taxonomy v4 domains to the CSDM v2 domains:
I suspecct there are some adjustment necessary here, any input and other examples are very welcome. There are many other use cases and examples we have yet to explore. From a technical perspective I wonder how much it could be possible to leverage the "Application Service" domain in the CSDM, to ingest a "logical representation of an application stack" that the domain is intended for, in order to quickly gather a total view of all towers/subs related to an application. Anybody have experience with this yet? Keep the discussion and experience flowing!
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Jack Bischof
RVP, EMEA
TBM Council
Netherlands
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Original Message:
Sent: 01-25-2021 11:39
From: Todd Tucker
Subject: ServiceNow Common Service Data Model (CSDM) 3.0 vs. TBM Taxonomy 4.0
I was recently asked about how the TBM Taxonomy compares to ServiceNow's Common Service Data Model (CSDM). I am sharing my response here. It is a limited response, but should provide a high-level understanding of how the two relate.
Note that ServiceNow defines CDSM as "is a standard and consistent set of terms and definitions that span and can be used with all ServiceNow® products on the Now Platform®." As such, it is specific to ServiceNow's products and they do not propose it to be an industry standard, which is how we describe the TBM Taxonomy. (Obviously, Apptio incorporates the TBM Taxonomy into the Apptio TBM Unified Model, or ATUM™, which includes additional proprietary elements such as data definitions, report definitions and allocation logic, among others. But TBM Taxonomy is also used by the US Federal Government, state governments in various countries, and other entities who may not be using Apptio's products.)
There is a lot in common between TBM Taxonomy and CSDM. Specifically, Taxonomy v4.0 includes and describes the following elements that are included in CSDM 3.0:
Business Capability, which would be synonymous with our Business Capability under Business Architecture (along with Business Process).
Business Application, synonymous to what we refer to via Solution Class of Application, which comes in Types for Business, Workplace, and Shared & Corporate, all of which could be considered "Business Applications" per CSDM
Business Service, synonymous to what we refer to via Solution Class of Service, which comes in a Types for Business, Workplace, and Shared & Corporate, all of which could be considered "Business Services" per CSDM
Technical Service, synonymous to what we refer to via Solution Class of Service, which comes in a Types for Delivery, Infrastructure, and Platform, all of which could be considered "Technical Services" per CSDM
The TBM Taxonomy does not specifically include:
Configuration Item (CI), which does not appear anywhere in the TBM Taxonomy but would be used in TBM models where appropriate.
Service Portfolio, which is not defined in the TBM Taxonomy but which we define in our framework/book/education as including the service pipeline (services in development), catalog (those available for consumption today) and retired (end of life, but often owned and maintained for compliance, archival or other reasons). We also recognize that portfolios come in various flavors, including product portfolios, project portfolios, portfolios of value streams, and more.
Finally, note that CSDM does not define a taxonomy of specific categories or examples and is not designed for TBM or service costing purposes. While it shows the data relationships of the aforementioned objects, it does not appear to support a consumptive model, like we have with TBM models in Apptio (and supported by the TBM Taxonomy and ATUM).
We believe that CSDM and TBM Taxonomy are complementary but designed to support different outcomes. If you use both, we'd love to hear how the two are working together and/or where there is conflict or a lack of clarity.
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Todd Tucker
VP, Standards and Education
TBM Council
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