CIS-DF Practice Questions

The CMDB Health Dashboard allows for granular control over the scope of its metrics using Health Inclusion Rules. These rules define a specific subset of CIs within a class to be evaluated for a particular health test. The scenario shows the Duplicate metric evaluating all 60,000 servers, while the Orphan metric evaluates only 50,000. This indicates that a Health Inclusion Rule is applied specifically to the Orphan metric for the Server class, filtering the CIs included in its calculation based on defined conditions.

A. The Orphan metric has a CMDB Group configured for the Server class: CMDB Groups are for logical organization and reporting, not for defining the evaluation scope of a specific health metric.

C. The Duplicate metric has a Health Inclusion rule configured for the Server class: This would cause the Duplicate metric to evaluate fewer than 60,000 CIs, which contradicts the information provided.

D. The Duplicate metric has a CMDB Group configured for the Server class: CMDB Groups are not the mechanism used to scope individual health metric calculations.

1. ServiceNow Product Documentation

"Create a CMDB health inclusion rule

" CMDB

Utah. "Use health inclusion rules to include only a specific set of CIs of a class in the health calculations of a health metric."

2. ServiceNow Product Documentation

"CMDB Health

" CMDB

Utah. "You can create an inclusion rule for a specific health test

such as the duplicate CIs test

and for a specific CI class

such as the Server class."

The Attestation policy type is specifically designed to automate the verification of Configuration Items (CIs). When an attestation policy is triggered for a set of CIs, it automatically generates and assigns attestation tasks to designated users or groups. These tasks require the assignee to confirm the existence and accuracy of the CI's details. This process ensures that the information within the CMDB remains current and reliable by periodically validating it with the people most knowledgeable about the CIs.

A. Certification is a different process that validates CI data against predefined data certification rules and standards, rather than verifying existence via user tasks.

B. Delete is a CI lifecycle state and an action, not a policy type for creating validation tasks. It is used for removing CIs permanently.

C. Retire is a CI lifecycle state, not a policy type. It signifies that a CI is no longer in active use but is being kept for historical purposes.

- ServiceNow Product Documentation. (2024). CI attestation. Retrieved from docs.servicenow.com. This document states

"You can use attestation to verify CIs in the CMDB. An attestation is a task that is sent to a user to verify a set of CIs."

- ServiceNow Product Documentation. (2024). Create an attestation policy type. Retrieved from docs.servicenow.com. This guide details the steps for creating policies that generate these verification tasks.

The Duplicate CI Remediator is designed to resolve de-duplication tasks by allowing an administrator to merge valuable information from multiple duplicate CIs into a single, authoritative "master" CI. In this scenario, the best practice is to select the most up-to-date CI (the discovered one) as the master and then selectively merge critical data, such as the business application relationship, from the duplicate CI before it is deleted. This ensures no critical data is lost during the remediation process.

A. This approach would lose the critical relationship data from the manually imported CI, which is an undesirable outcome.

B. This approach would result in losing the most current IP address, making the retained CI's data stale.

D. This approach is incorrect because it discards the critical relationship information without merging it into the retained CI.

1. ServiceNow Product Documentation. (2024). Remediate a de-duplication task. ServiceNow. Retrieved from the ServiceNow Product Documentation site. The documentation details the process: "In the Remediate dialog box

you can compare the duplicate CIs

select a CI to be the master CI

and then merge any relationships... from the other CIs to the master CI."

The CSDM Data Foundations Dashboard playbooks are designed to guide organizations in populating the most critical data and relationships within the Common Service Data Model framework. Two of the most fundamental relationships are: 1) The link between a Business Application (the business capability) and its corresponding Application Services (the deployed instances), which is crucial for connecting business context to operations. 2) The link between a Business Application and the Information Objects it uses, which is essential for data governance, security, and risk management.

B. Locations that have established parent records: While important for asset management, building location hierarchies is a general CMDB best practice, not a specific focus of the CSDM foundational playbooks.

D. Logical CIs that have relationships with Information Objects: This option is too generic. CSDM prescribes the specific, high-value relationship between the Business Application CI class and Information Objects.

ServiceNow Product Documentation

"CSDM Data Foundations dashboard

" Utah. This document details the dashboard's indicators

which track the population of key CIs and relationships

including "Business Applications related to Application Services" and "Business Applications related to Information Objects."

ServiceNow White Paper

"Common Service Data Model (CSDM) 4.0

" (Oct 2021). The paper details the CSDM domains

emphasizing the relationship between Business Application and Application Service in the "Manage Technical Services" crawl stage and the Business Application to Information Object relationship in the "Design" domain.

The question asks for the RAM value for a 'Server CI', which corresponds to the cmdbciserver class. Dynamic reconciliation rules are applied based on the CI's class. For the Server class, the configured rule for the RAM field is 'largest value'. Analyzing the multisource data, the values for RAM are 4,096 MB, 8,192 MB, and 4,096 MB. The largest of these values is 8,192 MB. The rule for the 'Windows Server' class is not applied because the CI in question is a generic Server CI, not a Windows Server CI.

A. The value 2,048 MB is not present in the source data and is therefore not a possible outcome of any reconciliation rule.

C. The value 4,096 MB would be chosen if the 'most reported' rule was applied. This rule is configured for the 'Windows Server' child class, not the 'Server' parent class specified in the question.

1. ServiceNow Product Documentation. (2023). CMDB Identification and Reconciliation. Dynamic reconciliation rules. "If a dynamic reconciliation rule is not found for a CI's class

the CMDB applies the dynamic reconciliation rule of the parent class." This implies rules are class-specific.

2. ServiceNow Product Documentation. (2023). CMDB Identification and Reconciliation. Create a dynamic reconciliation rule. This section describes the available rule types

including 'Largest value' and 'Most reported'.

--- QUESTION #20 ---

(Choose 2 options)

A CMDB Administrator is evaluating whether to monitor the metrics provided on the CMDB Data

Foundations Dashboard.

Which benefits support the decision to continually monitor the results on this dashboard?

A. Provides a list of all CIs that failed health audits

B. Provides metrics on active CIs updated in the last 90 days

C. Provides metrics for CIs processed by the Identification and Reconciliation Engine (IRE)

D. Reports on all orphan CIs in the CMDB

---

Correct Answer: B, C

Explanation: The CMDB Data Foundations Dashboard provides key performance indicators (KPIs) focused on the foundational health of the data sources and processes that populate the CMDB. It includes metrics that track the volume of CIs being processed by the Identification and Reconciliation Engine (IRE), ensuring data is being ingested correctly. It also tracks data currency with metrics like "CIs not updated in 90 days," which is the inverse of the metric in option B but addresses the same core benefit of monitoring CI freshness. These metrics help administrators ensure the CMDB is being populated with high-quality, current data from trusted sources.

Why Incorrect Options are Wrong:

A. This is a function of the CMDB Health Dashboard, which specifically runs health tests like required fields, audits, and staleness to find non-compliant CIs.

D. Orphan CIs are a specific data quality issue (a correctness metric) that is typically identified and reported through the CMDB Health Dashboard, not the Data Foundations Dashboard.

References:

ServiceNow Product Documentation, "CMDB Data Foundations dashboard," Store release notes for CSDM and CMDB Data Foundations Dashboards 2.2. This document lists the available reports, including "CIs Processed by IRE" and "CIs not updated in 90 days."

ServiceNow Product Documentation, "CMDB Health," Tokyo. This document describes the CMDB Health Dashboard's role in monitoring correctness, compliance, and completeness, which includes orphan and audit-failed CIs.

In the CI Class Manager, when viewing the attributes of a specific class like Windows Server, the Added tab is used. This tab displays only the attributes that have been defined directly on that specific class. It excludes attributes that are inherited from any of its parent classes in the class hierarchy (e.g., attributes inherited from the Server [cmdbciserver] or Hardware [cmdbcihardware] classes). This allows an administrator to easily identify custom attributes for a particular class.

A. Child: This is not a standard tab for viewing attributes of the current class; it relates to viewing child classes in the hierarchy.

C. All: The "All" tab shows every attribute for the class, including those inherited from all parent classes, not just those added specifically to it.

D. Derived: "Derived" is not a standard tab for viewing attributes in the CI Class Manager. Attributes are inherited from parent classes, not derived.

ServiceNow Product Documentation

"CI Class Manager". The documentation describes the user interface

including the "Attributes" section with its "All" and "Added" tabs for viewing class attributes.

ServiceNow Developer Documentation

"CI Class Manager". This resource explains how to "View the attributes that are defined for a class

and attributes that are inherited from parent classes" and implicitly distinguishes between all attributes and those added to the specific class.

ServiceNow prescribes a phased implementation approach for the Common Service Data Model (CSDM) known as Crawl, Walk, Run, and Fly. This methodology allows organizations to adopt the CSDM framework incrementally, focusing on foundational elements first (Crawl), then expanding to service mapping and portfolio management (Walk), advancing to automation and service health (Run), and finally achieving full optimization and business value (Fly). This staged rollout ensures a manageable and successful implementation by building maturity over time.

A. Initial, Developing, Defined, Managed: This represents a capability maturity model, not the specific CSDM implementation phases prescribed by ServiceNow.

B. Architecture, Business, Technical, Governance: These are domains or pillars of IT management, not a sequential rollout plan for CSDM.

C. Initiate, Plan, Execute, Deliver, Close: This describes a standard project management lifecycle, which is too generic and not the specific CSDM phased approach.

1. ServiceNow. (2022). Common Service Data Model (CSDM) 4.0 White Paper. Page 10

Section "CSDM implementation approach".

2. ServiceNow Product Documentation. (Tokyo Release). CSDM and the CMDB. Section: "CSDM framework stages".

CMDB 360 (formerly Multisource CMDB) uses specific system properties for its configuration. The property glide.identification_engine.multisource_enabled is the primary switch that activates the core CMDB 360 feature. The glide.identification_engine.multisource_cmdb_ci_enabled property dictates whether the system captures multisource data specifically for Configuration Items within CMDB classes. For troubleshooting and diagnostics, glide.cmdb.logger.source.cmdb_multisource enables detailed logging for multisource operations. Finally, glide.identification_engine.multisource.recompute.max.ci.limit controls performance by restricting the maximum number of CIs processed during a single recompute task. The remaining option regarding non-CMDB classes applies to a different, unlisted property (multisource_non_cmdb_ci_enabled).

ServiceNow Product Documentation: Enable CMDB 360. This section outlines the required steps to activate the feature, detailing the glide.identification_engine.multisource_enabled and glide.identification_engine.multisource_cmdb_ci_enabled properties.

ServiceNow Product Documentation: CMDB properties. This reference document provides the comprehensive list of Identification and Reconciliation Engine (IRE) properties, defining the exact functions of glide.cmdb.logger.source.cmdb_multisource and the CI limits defined by glide.identification_engine.multisource.recompute.max.ci.limit.

De-Duplication Tasks are automatically generated incident-like records when duplicate Configuration Items (CIs) are identified; these are assigned to specific groups for review. The CMDB Health Dashboard Correctness Scorecard calculates and displays metrics on data integrity, specifically offering insights into the volume of duplicate, orphan, and stale CIs. De-Duplication Templates allow administrators to define rule-based actions, enabling the system to evaluate and resolve multiple duplicate tasks simultaneously in bulk. Finally, the Duplicate CI Remediator is an interactive, manual wizard that guides users through the process of comparing CIs, selecting a master CI, and merging or deleting the duplicate records individually. Certification Tasks are used for data certification and are not the primary tool for duplicate remediation.

ServiceNow Product Documentation: Resolve a de-duplication task. Section: Configuration Management Database (CMDB) -> CMDB Health -> Resolve duplicate CIs. (Details assignment and routing of duplication tasks).

ServiceNow Product Documentation: CMDB Health metrics. Section: Configuration Management Database (CMDB) -> CMDB Health. (Defines the Correctness KPI and its sub-metrics, including duplicates).

ServiceNow Product Documentation: Duplicate CI Remediator. Section: Configuration Management Database (CMDB) -> CMDB Health -> Resolve duplicate CIs. (Explains the wizard interface for individual CI reconciliation).

ServiceNow Product Documentation: Duplicate resolution templates. Section: Configuration Management Database (CMDB) -> CMDB Health -> Resolve duplicate CIs. (Explains applying templates for bulk resolution of de-duplication tasks).