SNOW-CSA Database Administration and CMDB Practice Question
You are a ServiceNow administrator at a mid-sized company. The CMDB currently has over 100,000 CIs, and end users report that the CI search results are slow, often taking more than 10 seconds. The database has been optimized, but the issue persists. You have noticed that many CIs have empty or outdated fields. What is the best course of action to improve search performance without impacting data integrity?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently confuse 'data integrity' with 'keeping all data,' leading them to choose Option A (deleting old CIs) instead of recognizing that cleaning empty fields preserves CIs while improving performance.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Run the CMDB Data Manager to clean up empty fields and reduce index size.
The CMDB Data Manager can identify and remove empty or outdated fields from CI records, which reduces the size of the database indexes. Smaller indexes improve search query performance without deleting entire CIs, thus preserving data integrity. This directly addresses the root cause—bloated indexes due to unnecessary data—rather than masking the issue with connection pool changes or risking data loss.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Create a scheduled job to delete CIs that have not been updated in 90 days.
Why it's wrong here
Deleting CIs may remove assets that are still valid but rarely updated, harming data integrity.
- ✗
Disable the full-text search index and rely on basic database indexes.
Why it's wrong here
Disabling full-text search degrades search capabilities and is not a recommended optimization.
- ✗
Increase the database connection pool size and restart the instance.
Why it's wrong here
This does not address the table size issue; it only allows more concurrent connections.
- ✓
Run the CMDB Data Manager to clean up empty fields and reduce index size.
Why this is correct
Data Manager can identify and remove empty fields, shrinking the table and improving performance.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This SNOW-CSA practice question is part of Courseiva's free ServiceNow certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the SNOW-CSA exam.