Data model for Telecommunications Network Inventory

Release version: Xanadu

Updated August 1, 2024

4 minutes to read

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Summary of Data model for Telecommunications Network Inventory

The Telecommunications Network Inventory data model outlines how your network assets, infrastructure, and services interrelate within ServiceNow. It enables you to provision, modify, maintain, and plan for network growth by managing detailed data such as equipment configurations, port availability, and bandwidth allocations between sites and services. This model supports automation of network design and service order fulfillment, enhancing operational efficiency and network planning.

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This data model extends the Configuration Management Database (CMDB) through specialized Network Inventory (NI) extension classes aligned with telecommunications industry standards like TM Forum and MEF, ensuring consistency and standardization across your network asset records.

Key Components

Network Site and Location: Network site records represent the physical locations of your network assets, including network centers, buildings, floors, and rooms. They help monitor connection origins and terminations, track operational status, and map sites within service topologies for improved fault identification and outage management.
Equipment Holder: These are physical containers for telecommunications equipment, such as cages, bays, cabinets, and racks. Equipment holders can be nested to represent complex physical structures, enabling detailed asset tracking and management.
Telco Equipment: Devices providing network functionality (e.g., routers, modems, switches) are represented here. Equipment may include slots, cards, and ports and can reside within equipment holders or standalone.
Network Interface and Interface Cards: Capture detailed equipment interface attributes, including physical and logical ports, with bandwidth assignments critical for network design and resource allocation.
Physical and Logical Connections: Represent port connections on interface cards, distinguishing between actual physical links and virtual/logical paths that aggregate multiple physical connections.
Network Topology: Visualizes how network elements—nodes (equipment), edges (connections), and termination points (interfaces)—are organized and interconnected, aiding in network analysis and planning.

Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

Standardized and detailed asset and service data within the CMDB tailored for telecommunications networks.
Improved ability to monitor and manage physical network locations and equipment, enhancing visibility and operational control.
Support for automation in network design and service provisioning, reducing manual effort and errors.
Comprehensive data structure for forecasting network growth and planning infrastructure investments.
Alignment with industry standards ensures compatibility and best practices adherence.

The data model for Telecommunications Network Inventory displays the relationships between your network assets, infrastructure, and services. With this information, you can provision new services, modify existing services, maintain the network, and plan the forecast for the network growth in your organization.

Introduction to Network Inventory data model

The data model contains the details about your network assets, such as the telco equipment configuration data, port availability of a framework, and bandwidth allocations between your sites and services. This data model enables you to build, manage, maintain, and allocate the network infrastructure and services. Further, this data model provides a for the automation of design and creation of your network equipment and connections that support the customer service orders and internal network orders.

The assets, services, and the relationships of your network inventory defines the infrastructure of your telecommunications networks. With this information, you can plan and forecast your network. You can store the data of the asset in a network inventory record.

The Telecommunications Network Inventory application uses the Network Inventory extension classes that extend the Configuration Management Database (CMDB) Configuration Item (CI) class hierarchy. These extensions enable the CMDB to store your network inventory information. Also, these extension classes provide the standardization and consistency that are aligned with the telecommunications industry standards bodies such as TeleManagement (TM) Forum and Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF). To learn more about the Network Inventory (NI) extension classes, see Telecommunications Network Inventory extension classes.

The following diagram shows the extension classes in the data model for the network inventory.

Infographic for network Inventory extension classes. For the details of extension classes, refer to the Network Inventory extension classes section. — Figure 1. Network Inventory data model

Network site and Network location

Network site records in the Telecommunications Network Inventory application provide information about the physical location of your network equipment and resources. You can use network site records to:

monitor from where your network connections originate and terminate
monitor the network centers, buildings, floors, and rooms where your network assets are located
track the operational status of your network sites
map your network sites in your service topology
link your physical locations to your network sites for a better visualization
Identify network faults and outages

A network site is a configuration item (CI) in the Telecommunications Network Inventory application that's derived from the equipment and connections within the network site, while a location is simply a physical address.

Telecommunications Network Inventory extension classes

The Telecommunications Network Inventory application uses the generic configuration item (CI) classes that extend the CMDB class hierarchy as shown in the following table. The following table describes the classes that are used within the application.

Table 1. Network Inventory (NI) extension classes
Telecommunications Network Inventory class	Extends generic CI class	Description
TNI CI Attributes [tni_entity]	Non-CI class	TNI CI Attributes record. Represents a collection of the common Telecommunications Network Inventory attributes. Use the TNI CI Attribute record to create the relevant common attributes relevant for Telecommunications Network Inventory and makes a relationship with the CI record. To learn more, see TNI CI Attributes form.
Network Site [cmdb_ci_ni_site]	Site [cmdb_ci_site]	Network Site. Captures and maintains the location-specific attributes for each network site, including the network centers, buildings, floors, and rooms where the equipment is located. The network site records enable you to view all the equipment at a location. You can filter the locations by the assigned type, role, or function categories. To learn more, see 441ee506626159b7c5417e0ee54287e0a1c8c455.dita.
Equipment Holder [cmdb_ci_equipment_holder]	Hardware [cmdb_ci_hardware]	Equipment Holder Represents the physical units that contain the telecommunications equipment, including the cages, bays, cabinets, slots, and relay racks. An equipment holder can contain the other equipment holders. For example, the line-ups contain the individual relay racks and each relay rack contains the equipment shelves. Use the equipment holder records to track and manage your network assets. To learn more, see 32237a1ef03954c4f477c14451453376a9382db2.dita. To learn more about the extension classes of the equipment holder, see Equipment holder extension classes.
Telco Equipment [cmdb_ci_ni_telco_equipment]	Network gear [cmdb_ci_netgear]	Telco Equipment Represents a device that provides the technical functionality in a network. Examples include the routers, modems, mobile devices, optical cables,relays, and switches. The equipment can have slots, cards, or ports. The equipment can exist within an equipment holder or by itself because not all equipment is rack mounted. Use the equipment record to track and manage the details of your telco equipment. To learn more, see Create a telecommunications equipment instance. To learn more about the equipment extension classes, see Equipment extension classes.
Network Interface [cmdb_ci_ni_interface]	Network Port [cmdb_ci_ni_network_port]	Network Interface Captures and maintains the equipment-specific attributes for the network interfaces. To learn more, see Define the network interface details.
Interface Card [cmdb_ci_interface_card]	Network gear [cmdb_ci_netgear]	Network Interface Card Represents the interface cards that are stored in a network. Cards can occupy more than one slot and can contain other cards. They can be the equipment ports that are physical or logical (virtual). Each port is assigned a bandwidth value. The bandwidths are consumed when you use the ports in the network design. To learn more, see Define the card details.
Physical Connection [cmdb_ci_ni_physical_link]	Network Link [cmdb_ci_network_link]	Physical Connection Represents the physical port connections on the interface cards in your network. To learn more, see Define the physical connection details.
Logical Connection [cmdb_ci_ni_logical_path]	Network Circuit [cmdb_ci_network_circuit]	Logical Connection Represents the logical or virtual port connections on the network interface cards. A logical connection typically represents the multiple physical connections on an interface card. To learn more, see Define the logical connection details.
Topology [cmdb_ci_topology]	Network Topology [cmdb_ci_network_topology]	Network Topology Represents the grouping of the network elements such as nodes (equipment), edges (connections), and termination points (interfaces), how they are organized and connected to each other. To learn more, see Visualization of network topology.