In Data Foundations (CMDB and CSDM), relationship modeling must reflect real operational dependency so that incident triage, change impact analysis, and service visibility remain accurate. When an Application is hosted on a Server, the standard hosting-style relationship used in CMDB relationship governance is expressed as “Runs on::Runs”. This pairing represents the two directional descriptors of the same relationship type: from the application perspective it runs on the server, and from the server perspective it runs the application.
This matters because CMDB relationships are used by downstream capabilities (for example, dependency views, impact calculations, and governance rules). Using the correct out-of-box relationship descriptor pair ensures consistent reporting and prevents confusion when teams traverse relationships “upstream” and “downstream.” In addition, relationship governance rules and inheritance are commonly built around standard relationship types; using the correct “Runs on::Runs” semantics supports validation across subclasses (for example, specific application and server subclasses) without requiring custom relationship definitions.
The other options are either reversed (“Runs::Runs On”), represent different semantics (“Uses::Used by”), or do not align with the typical hosting relationship naming used for application-to-server hosting dependencies. Therefore, the correct relationship expression between an Application and a Server is Application > Runs on::Runs > Server.
