CI Classes & Hierarchy

Class Hierarchy

StackFlow uses an object-oriented CI class hierarchy similar to SCCM and ServiceNow. Every CI belongs to a class that defines its mandatory and optional attributes. Classes are organized in a tree with Configuration Item at the root, allowing common attributes to be inherited down the tree.

⚙️ Minimum Requirements

DynamoDB: StackFlow_CIClass table defining all CI class schemas and inheritance hierarchy
DynamoDB: StackFlow_CI table with PK ciId and attribute ciClass for class-based queries
Neptune: Graph schema must include all CI vertex labels: CI, Service, Application, Infrastructure

Configuration Item
├── Infrastructure
│   ├── Server
│   │   ├── Physical Server
│   │   └── Virtual Machine
│   ├── Network Device
│   │   ├── Router
│   │   ├── Switch
│   │   └── Firewall
│   └── Storage
├── Cloud Resource
│   ├── Compute (EC2, VM, GCE)
│   ├── Database (RDS, Aurora, SQL)
│   ├── Serverless (Lambda, Functions)
│   └── Network (VPC, Subnet, SG)
├── Application
│   ├── Business Application
│   └── Technical Service
└── Hardware
    ├── End User Device
    └── Peripheral

Core CI Classes

Class	Key Attributes	Typical Count
Server	hostname, IP, OS, CPU, RAM, disk	Hundreds–Thousands
Lambda Function	function_name, runtime, memory, timeout, VPC	Tens–Hundreds
RDS/Aurora Cluster	endpoint, engine, version, size, AZs	Ones–Tens
Application	name, owner, tier, dependencies	Tens–Hundreds
Network Device	IP, MAC, model, firmware, ports	Tens–Hundreds

Custom CI Classes

Organizations can create custom CI classes to represent domain-specific configuration items not covered by built-in classes. Custom classes inherit from any existing class and can add custom attributes. Custom class definitions are stored in the CMDB schema registry and reflected in the UI's CI form and list views automatically.

Attributes by Class

All CI classes inherit the base attributes from Configuration Item: sys_id, name, ci_class, state, operational_status, owner, support_group, environment, tenant_id, created_at, updated_at.

Class Inheritance

Attribute inheritance works top-down. A Lambda Function CI inherits all attributes from Cloud Resource and Configuration Item, then adds its own specific attributes. This means reports and queries can be run against any level of the hierarchy — a query for all Cloud Resource CIs returns Lambda functions, RDS clusters, EC2 instances, and all other cloud resource subclasses.

Tip: When creating custom CI classes, attach them to the most specific applicable parent class. This ensures they appear in the correct category in the CMDB browser and are included in the right discovery rules.

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CMDB Overview

Configuration database architecture

Cloud Discovery

AWS, Azure, GCP auto-discovery