Life cycle of intangible/logical entities
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Summary of Life cycle of intangible/logical entities
This documentation describes the life cycle management of intangible or logical entities within ServiceNow, focusing on logical assets and Configuration Items (CIs) such as applications, services, and licenses. These logical items have specific life cycle stages and statuses that are visible exclusively in tables related to intangible/logical items in Asset Management and the Configuration Management Database (CMDB).
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Life-cycle values and inheritance
Life cycle stages and statuses for intangible/logical CIs, assets, and Interface Business Items (IBIs) are controlled through the lifecyclecontrol table, which uses the CI type (e.g., tangible, document, location) to determine applicable life cycle statuses. Service instances, being logical entities, follow the intangible/logical life cycle model and align with the same guidance as other logical CIs. They can be monitored using the Service instance (Application Services) dashboard.
Business Applications demonstrate an aggregation-based inheritance model for life cycle stages. While Business Application records define their own specific stages (such as Ideation, Design, Operational, and End of Life), they also inherit parent life cycle stages like Deploy and Inventory from higher-level CI classes (e.g., cmdbci). This aggregation means child classes extend rather than override parent life cycle definitions, resulting in Business Applications displaying both application-specific and infrastructure-related life cycle stages. This behavior is intentional and differs from the syschoice inheritance model, which follows a “most specific table wins” approach.
Practical implications for ServiceNow customers
- Visibility and management: Life cycle stages and statuses for intangible/logical entities are managed distinctly from physical assets and are visible only in relevant Asset Management and CMDB tables.
- Service instances: Customers managing service instances can apply the logical life cycle framework, ensuring consistent tracking and health monitoring through dedicated dashboards.
- Life cycle inheritance: Understanding that Business Applications inherit life cycle stages from parent CI classes helps interpret the displayed stages correctly, avoiding confusion when infrastructure-related stages appear in application records.
- Configuration control: The lifecyclecontrol table governs the availability of life cycle statuses based on CI types, enabling tailored life cycle management for different asset categories.
This life cycle model facilitates comprehensive tracking and management of logical assets and services, supporting better governance and alignment with product-related processes within ServiceNow.
The intangible/logical life-cycle value pairs represent the overall life cycle of logical assets and CIs as related to their products. A logical or software asset includes items like applications, services, and licenses. The life cycle stage and life cycle stage status values of logical items are visible only in tables related to intangible/logical items in Asset Management and the CMDB.
Life-cycle values for intangible/logical CIs, assets, and IBIs
For definitions of the values in the diagram, see Definitions of life-cycle values for intangible/logical entities.
Service instances use intangible/logical life cycles
Because service instances are logical in nature, they should use the Logical life-cycle value pairs. Service instances follow the same life-cycle guidance as any other logical CI.
See Use Service instance (Application Services) dashboard to monitor health.
Life cycle inheritance for Business Applications
Parent life cycle stages (for example, Deploy or Inventory) appear in Business Application records even though they aren’t defined directly for the class. This is expected due to aggregation-based inheritance.
Business Application records define a restricted set of life cycle stages intended to reflect application planning and usage, such as Ideation, Design, Operational, and End of Life. These life cycle definitions are configured using the life_cycle_control table specifically for the cmdb_ci_business_application class.
However, when viewing or editing a Business Application record, additional life cycle stages such as Deploy and Inventory may also appear. These stages are not defined directly for Business Application, but are inherited from parent CI classes (for example, cmdb_ci) through the aggregation-based inheritance model used by life_cycle_control.
In this model, life cycle definitions from the current CI class are combined with life cycle definitions from all parent classes in the CMDB class hierarchy. Child classes therefore extend parent life cycle definitions rather than overriding them.
As a result, Business Application records can display life cycle stages that are applicable to infrastructure or hardware CIs but may not be semantically meaningful for applications. This behavior is expected and working as designed.
The life cycle inheritance model used by life_cycle_control differs from the inheritance behavior of sys_choice. While sys_choice uses a “most specific table wins” model (child table choices override parent table choices), life cycle controls are aggregated across the class hierarchy. There is currently no mechanism to suppress parent life cycle stages for a child CI class.