Install Status, Hardware Status or Operational Status?

[mbourla]

Am revisiting this old question, to understand which status field to use on CIs - install_status, hardware_status or operational_status.   Would be keen to know what other people are doing around this.

The 3 OOTB status fields are:

• hardware_status (and hardware_substatus) : defined on cmdb_ci_hardware, so only available for hardware.
• install_status : defined on the cmdb table (in recent versions, previously cmdb_ci), so can be used on all CI types (including hardware)
• operational_status : defined on cmdb_ci, so can be used on all CI types (including hardware).

https://community.servicenow.com/thread/221800 says that hardware_status is legacy, so to use install_status.

https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/istanbul-servicenow-platform/page/product/configuration-managemen... describes how operational_status is sync'd with hardware_status (on hardware CIs) or with install_status (on non-hardware CIs).   I didn't know that before. But from experimenting, it only syncs operational_status with one or other of install_status and hardware_status, not both.   Which isn't terribly helpful (but can be customised of course).

https://community.servicenow.com/message/840145#840145 advises to ignore operational_status and use install_status.

So the conclusion so far is to go with just install_status for all CI types.

But... from https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/istanbul-servicenow-platform/page/product/configuration-managemen... it's operational_status which the new CI Lifecycle Management works with.

Which implies that ServiceNow intend people to use operational_status as the primary status field.

So the question is... to stick with install_status, which keeps things simple?   Or use operational_status, to allow future use of CI Lifecycle Management?   Or use both install_status AND operational_status, where I'd see operational_status being like a sub-status for install_status (and the choices tweaked to remove the overlap & duplication).

Thoughts welcome!!

Thanks

Michael

[sarfraz3]

hi Michael,

With all analysis and thoughts, it will be always wise to play safe and that is what we are also doing. Install-status for me definitely.

thanks

[akash_mehta]

Michael:   Agree on the use of Install Status and Operational Status.

1)   install status should be used as it syncs with the Asset State field as well

2)   Operational status should be used via Change Management for more "infrastructure" CIs and things like Business Applications.

*   I like using Change Management to set the operational status to "Operational" after the ticket to move to production has been completed. - so for the initial operational status should default to Non-operational for infrastructure type of CIs.

Just some thoughts.

-Akash

[mbourla]

Thanks Sarfraz & Akash. What I should have mentioned is that we've been using ServiceNow for some 5 years now. We are now in the process of redeveloping our entire system from scratch, primarily to get closer to Out Of The Box. Our original decision those 5 or 6 years ago was to use just install_status, as Sarfraz suggests. But now I'm reviewing quite a number of decisions, one being which status field(s) to use.   I'm still unclear though, because Operational Status does appear in a lot of places in code and docs, so to keep OOTB that would imply the need to use that status field. So I'm thinking perhaps we need to use both install_status AND operational_status for all CI types, although that could make things more confusing for users to have to maintain 2 separate statuses. So this is why I was keen to find out how other ServiceNow users handle CI status. And ideally what the official ServiceNow guidance is.

Regards
Michael

[akash_mehta]

Michael:   So the main status that should be used is Install Status.   This is what is synced back with Asset.  

The operational status could/should be utilized with infrastructure/service CIs and change management.   Can you identify the "code" that is using operational status today?   I don't know of much if any OOB that uses that status field today.

-Akash