What's new in IT Asset Management (ITAM) for the San Diego release

[Bryan Blackburn]

In the San Diego release, we continue to focus on helping our customers slash software, hardware, and cloud costs; mitigate risk through the entire asset lifecycle; and improve efficiencies with prescriptive workflow. The IT Asset Management (ITAM) business unit continues to drive innovation to help customers get to value outcomes quickly with end-to-end lifecycle visibility of the entire asset estate—including hardware, virtual assets, software, and cloud resources. San Diego’s features and capabilities help solve challenges that arise when asset management is managed separately from other areas of IT and the business and when asset data is scattered across the organization or between tools. The Now Platform^® enables customers to manage their entire IT estate on a single data model with automated workflows that drive action through the asset lifecycle.

• The San Diego release includes innovations across:
• • Better together: Leverage HAM and SAM workflows for a seamless offboarding process
  • Software Asset Management—with capabilities to automate more SAM tasks including the software request process leveraging Virtual Agent assistance
  • Hardware Asset Management—with a modern look and unified navigation to help take the guesswork out of HAM activities
  • Cloud Insights—for your hybrid cloud environments across IaaS and PaaS 

Software Asset Management (SAM)

servicenow.com/SAM

The San Diego release of Software Asset Management includes: 

• Content Library Portal
• Azure BYOL realized savings report
• SAM automation and optimization
• • Calculated software lifecycles
  • Custom PPN workflow
  • Advanced CAL support
  • Seismic support center
  • SAM Virtualization Adapter
  • Subscription conditions
• SaaS License Management
• • Direct-to-vendor integration: Crowdstrike
• Better together integrations
• • Virtual Agent for Software Requests
• Publisher Pack updates
• • Microsoft
  • Oracle

Content Library Portal

Content Library Portal enables customers to intelligently search for technology assets in the expansive ITAM Content Library. Confirm coverage of your most critical vendors and products. Content Library Portal provides easy access to software information such as software lifecycle dates, versions, part numbers (PPNs), discovery maps, downgrades, license metrics, bundle components, or model IDs—data critical for various workflows like new technology onboarding, vulnerability assessments, and many others.

Content Library Portal leverages AI technology for fast and intelligent search in an easy-to-use portal

Azure BYOL realized savings report

Use the Azure BYOL realized savings report to get visibility into the cost savings for your Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Windows Server deployments on Microsoft Azure when using Azure Hybrid Benefit. View potential costs, actual costs, potential cost savings, and actual cost savings to determine how much you are saving by using Azure Hybrid Benefit. This report is generated only if you have requested and installed the Cloud Insights application.

SAM automation and optimization

Calculated software lifecycles

Create lifecycles to get estimates on End of Life (EOL) and End of Support (EOS) for products and publishers in the absence of vendor-provided lifecycles. You can create EOL and EOS lifecycles based on industry averages, measured in months, from the General Availability (GA) dates. You can also override the global industry averages by specifying custom values for a product or a publisher.

Gain estimated lifecycle dates when not available from the vendor.

Custom PPN workflow

Automate the replacement of custom part numbers with Content Service suggestions. Propagate changes to entitlements and software models by replacing your custom PPNs and custom discovery maps (DMAPs) with the Software Asset Management Content Service PPNs and DMAPs. PPN suggestions are available only if a corresponding match is found for your custom PPN in the Content Service. You can view the suggestions to assess their impact and then accept or reject the suggestions. If you accept the suggestions, all changes to entitlements and software models, such as downgrade rights and life cycles, are automatically propagated.

Get automated alerts for custom PPNs now available through Content Service

Advanced CAL support

Simplify Oracle client access license (CAL) management by automatically generating client access records for users and devices that access Oracle Database Server. Assign CALs to users and devices based on the CAL type of your client access records. Use the CAL type to indicate whether each client access record is associated with User CALs only, Device CALs only, or both User and Device CALs. Based on the CAL type that you select, you can specify the users or devices that you want to assign the associated CALs to so that they are accurately accounted for during reconciliation. Use this information for a more accurate view of your CAL license position so that you can better optimize your CAL licensing costs.

Seismic support center

Gain in-product support in the Software Asset Manager Workspace on Next Experience.

SAM Virtualization Adapter

Achieve optimized correct license compliance by reconciling software installs on various virtualization technologies, including Red Hat and Hyper-V. Use Software Asset Management to reconcile Microsoft SQL and Windows Server software installs on Red Hat and Hyper-V virtualization technologies and thereby apply licensing rules of different publishers to achieve accurate license compliance.

Subscription conditions

Achieve more granular control over the subscriptions that are included in reconciliation by defining subscription conditions on your subscription-based software models. Use these conditions to specify the groups of subscriptions that you want to reconcile so that you can determine the license compliance of a specific subset of your subscription-based software. You can define subscription conditions on software models that contain either subscriptions only or both subscriptions and on-premises software installations.

SaaS License Management

With deeper insights and publisher-specific metrics, customers can make strategic decisions to reclaim and reallocate unused or underutilized licenses and better prepare for future SaaS purchases and renewals.

New and updated SaaS plugins and integrations will be available in the ServiceNow Store to support the faster pace of integration delivery and enhanced support for partner build integrations. Check out our growing list of SaaS integrations available out of the box with ServiceNow Software Asset Management.

Direct-to-vendor integration — Crowdstrike

The integration with Crowdstrike helps customers gain meaningful usage data to maintain Crowdstrike compliance with insight into hosts with active agents and sensors. Generate remediation options to purchase new rights or remove unlicensed installs.

Better together integrations

Virtual Agent for Software Requests

Software requests happen for many reasons – we have employees that switch roles, the company goes on a hiring spree, or we’re adapting to employees transitioning between office and remote work locations. Virtual Agent for Software Requests helps to simplify and automate the software request process with a superior end-to-end experience for both the end-user making the request and those responsible for fulfilling the request. Leverage ServiceNow^® Virtual Agent to help speed up service delivery times by automating software allocations and installations through a conversational interface that guides users through every step of the request. 

Leverage Virtual Agent to simplify and automate the software request process

Publisher Pack updates 

SAM's Content Library contains software metadata for thousands of software publishers. For complex licensing, packs are included for publishers such as SAP, Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, VMware, Citrix, and Adobe. These packs include publisher-specific calculations to aid mostly with complex server licensing, such as Oracle database options that can go unused, providing a tremendous optimization opportunity to reduce license costs.

Publisher Pack updates in San Diego:

Microsoft	Import Microsoft License Statements (MLS) to automatically create accurate entitlements.  Discover server editions and reconcile components to the requisite SQL Server DB.  Optimize license compliance of software resources deployed on a cluster by partially licensing the Microsoft SQL Server and Windows Server resource with Per Core and Per Core (with CAL) license metrics.
Oracle	License users and devices on client access records based on client access license (CAL) type.  Optimize Oracle licensing costs for database licenses in multitenant architectures.  Gain enhanced support for Oracle Max rules.

Hardware Asset Management (HAM)

servicenow.com/HAM
 

The San Diego release of Hardware Asset Management includes: 

• Hardware Asset Manager Workspace

Hardware Asset Manager Workspace 

Drive asset manager productivity with a purpose-built workspace that provides a centralized, single-pane view of the hardware asset estate. Discover ‘important actions’ in a single dashboard with an intuitive UI for critical hardware asset tasks. The Hardware Asset Workspace includes the following views:

• • Hardware Asset Overview
  • Inventory
  • Asset Estate
  • Model Management

Hardware Asset Manager Workspace on Next Experience.

SAM + HAM: IT Asset Offboarding

Efficiently coordinate your employee’s offboarding process with a workflow that enables you to request, evaluate, and remove software or hardware assets. The IT asset offboarding process helps ensure that all devices and software licenses assigned to your employee are returned. Additionally, all software installations on the devices are removed, and access to all SaaS products is revoked.

Cloud Insights

The San Diego release of Cloud Insights includes: 

• • Reservation Plans 

Reservation Plans

Cloud service providers offer discount pricing for certain resources at a particular level of use for a fixed period. Providers use various names for this offering: "reservation plans", “reserved instance (RI) plans”, “committed use plans”, or “savings plans”. Cloud Insights integrates with the provider recommendations for resources that would cost less under such plans.

Cloud Insights generates reports that enable you to strategically implement reservation plans for both new capacity and for better utilization of existing plans.

Optimize spend and usage of AWS and Azure reserved instances

Check out the ITAM product page for more information or check out a demo.  Schedule a conversation with your ServiceNow account today or click here to find out more. 

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Join us for the The Now Platform San Diego event.

Mark your calendar for the Now Platform San Diego release broadcast  

Join us for the San Diego release broadcast —a global digital experience where we’ll be unveiling exciting, new innovations in the San Diego release across different markets.  

The broadcast digital event is April 6 and is part of the Knowledge Digital Experience. Your registration for this broadcast provides free access to all that the Digital Experience has to offer, including 200+ sessions beginning in May.

Make sure to watch the San Diego release introduction session with Dave Wright, chief innovation officer, as well as 21 sessions on demand, where we’ll highlight different ServiceNow^® products, innovations, demos, and the Now Platform. The times of the broadcasts are:

• AMS: April 6 at 9:00 am PT/12:00 pm ET,
• EMEA: 7 April at 8:00 am GMT/9:00 am CET
• APJ: 7 April at 9:00 am SGT /11:00 am AEST

Register now

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