For the last couple of years, we have been creating a "common reference data model for CMDB" and this week we have finally made it public under a creative commons license.

This "Practical Data Model for CMDB" (PDMC) is vendor-agnostic and meant to be a generic reference model for any CMDB solution. The model has multiple "layers" that we call Tiers, Domain Groups, Domains and Classes. The model includes high-level diagram showing the overall relationships between domains under different tiers. And a more detailed domain level class diagrams.

This is a logical data model and when looked through the "ServiceNow glasses" many of the logical classes can be instances of the same CI Class like "Service" (cmdb_ci_service) for example. I'm planning to create ServiceNow specific versions of the domain level data models, so stay tuned for that.

Anyways, I decided to share this model here also, since we have found this very useful especially when starting to define responsibilities (domain owners) and planning the scope for your next CMDB initiative.

The model can be found in full at justin.fi/pdmc. Please, let us know what you think about the model? Share your experience in using it (yes, it's free to use and share) or if you would like to talk about it in more detail.

Cheers, Mikko