Where do the ServiceNow names come from? #1 – Statistics

Willem · ‎02-10-2022

It is well known in the ServiceNow Community that releases are named after cities. What is not known is how it is decided what city will be used for the naming.

Triggered by the questions and suggestions in both the Community and LinkedIn, this series will investigate possible options to determine the names. Why not "U" for "Utrecht" or a city in India? Hopefully we can figure this out together. If you have any alternate theories you would like to investigate, please leave in the comments. If you know on what basis a city is picked, also please let us know!

Investigation

[ Please note, this is not scientific research]

To investigate this, each Article will investigate a hypothesis. First the hypothesis is tested and then an alternative list of release version names is proposed.

The hypothesis that will be covered:

Version names are the Capital cities of countries.
Version names are chosen based on the population of cities.
Version names are based on the demo data (employees?)
Version names are based on ServiceNow Office locations.

Version names and release dates

This table shows the Release names and release dates. These can be found here:

https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_article&sys_id=0886b5dddb5a3b00d82ffb2439961...

Release name	Date
Aspen	2011
Berlin	20/09/2012
Calgary	25/06/2013
Dublin	2013
Eureka	15/05/2014
Fuji	01/03/2015
Geneva	01/12/2015
Helsinki	12/05/2016
Istanbul
Jakarta	2017-06
Kingston	16/11/2017
London	26/07/2018
Madrid	24/01/2019
New York	May/19
Orlando	11/03/2020
Paris	Q3-2020
Quebec	Q1-2021
Rome	Q3-2021
San Diego	Q2-2022
Tokyo	Q4-2022
Utah	Q2-2023
Vancouver	Q4-2023
Washington	Q2-2024

Statistics

Below shows some of the statistics based on the current city/version names.

Per Continent:

Let’s first see which continent is most represented in the ServiceNow version names list:

Per Country:

Drilling down to a country level, shows the following results:

OP · ‎02-11-2022

May be rule is very simple.

Just first city name letter matters.

Willem · ‎02-11-2022

What do you mean?

OP · ‎02-11-2022

SNOW versions are ordered using lexicographic approach vs. more traditional versioning number. Good marketing approach differentiating SNOW from other vendors.

City names were used to support this.

Next cities will be starting with "X", then "Y" and finally "Z". If no changes we'll see city starting with "A" after that.

P.S. Could be missing your topic point. 🙂

Willem · ‎02-11-2022

Ah then I think you missed the point. I start the intro with: "It is well known in the ServiceNow Community that releases are named after cities."

The articles are about why not "U" for "Utrecht" instead of "Utah" or for example a city in India?

OP · ‎02-11-2022

Ok. Could be wrong but I doubt that there is a logical reasoning behind this. Will see your findings 😉

Sam10 · ‎02-25-2022

Canada represented 3 times?. I see only one (Vancouver)

Unless, Kingston & London are the ones that are based in Ontario.

Willem · ‎02-25-2022

Hi Sam,

The cities in Canada are:

- Calgary

- Quebec

- Vancouver (you spotted that one)

3 in total.

As for Kingston it is the capital of Jamaica. Kingston City however is local government area in Australia

MichaelP1 · ‎04-04-2022

My few suggestions for future naming;

Xinjiang, China
York, UK
Zanzibar, Tanzania

Adelaide, Australia / Austin, USA
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Canberra, Australia (our capital city!)

jMarshal · ‎06-13-2023

#gravedigger -- bringing this post back from the dead

Hey @Sam10 - Canada could also claim Eureka (Nunavut) and Paris (Ontario) -- that's 7 for the Canucks! LOL

I found this post because I was also "weirded out" that Utah is the only place name on the list, which isn't actually a municipality or municipal region.

...unless you count "Québec" as Le Province du Québécois (PQ), rather than La Ville de Québec (Québec City), but that's a stretch.

Utah though? There's no Utah City...and TONS of cities that start with "U". So weird....they even went so far as to include "DC" for Washington, to distinguish from the state in the pacific NW.

...also, I'm very much looking forward to the "Hair Era" that is rumored to be coming...maybe they'll kick off the announcement with 'Coop playing K24 - wouldn't that be something!?!?! Think of all the fun we could have with that...Bango Tango, Cinderella, Dokken, Extreme, Firehouse, Guns N Roses, Hanoi Rocks...😅🤣

courtenay1 · ‎10-25-2023

Before cities the feature releases were seasons e.g. Winter 2008 , but that locked the release cycle to quarters.

And before seasons, going way back, GlideSoft was just major.minor number releases e.g. v1.1 2004.

Maybe after "Zanzibar" maybe it could be apples ?

Starting with Ambrosia, ending in Zestar!

Tom Brown · ‎12-05-2024

I think a few people sit around a table and throw out names. When someone says, 'Yeah! that's a good one.', we have a winner.

Craig Steel - F

Long time devs know the real answer. 😉

Before Aspen, SN used to name releases after timeframes as Courtnay1 mentioned above. "Q1 2010", "Q4 2011", etc. But they got embarrassed because they continually missed those dates, so Q1 2010 would end up hitting GA in September instead of March.

So, they switched to non-dated releases to avoid setting expectations they couldn't hit. Funnily enough, they've improved the process enough that NOW they could go with dated release names and meet those targets.

Also, "Calgary" was named specifically because it contained major updates to the CMDB and Config Management, which was folding in some work done at a Calgary-based customer that they decided to adopt and release to everyone. Being named as the "C" release was our reward. 😉