More work. . . fewer resources . . . no problem! New features in the Tokyo release timeframe allow ITOM and the CMDB to act as force multipliers

[ServiceNow]

  

In the face of today’s supply chain disruptions and a tight labor market, we recognize 

• you need a cross-functional approach to quickly identify the root cause of alerts and incidents and to keep your development pipeline flowing smoothly 
• you need better views of your entire cloud footprint to compare resources you have committed to multiple providers over time. You also need a clear view of your system health to make sound strategic and operational decisions; and, 
• you need a CMDB you can trust quickly and that empowers technology workers to ask simple questions about critical issues. 

The Tokyo release addresses each of these needs in turn, turning your ServiceNow® IT Operations Management and CMDB into true force multipliers.  Together they enable your limited staff to work more efficiently with better information, freeing them to address your most critical business priorities.  

Accelerated root cause analysis - Get to the root of any issue fast with the full context of what caused it—including the full set of development and configuration settings.  Accelerated root cause enables operators and agents to work together on the newly released Service Operations Workspace.  When an alert is generated, an operator can now trace that alert through recent configuration changes and ultimately to a filtered readout of the before and after settings that caused the problem.  Operators can quickly pin down root cause and restore service.  Agents can keep users informed and manage any related incidents. 

Whether the root cause is a broken or incomplete URL, the mistaken use of a development URL in the production environment, or a plain text password, the setting can be corrected by a site reliability engineer (SRE) who can also easily set a policy that can prevent any similar errors in subsequent releases from making it to production without being flagged and resolved.  That keeps everyone more productive.  

Health Log Visibility and Reporting – ITOM Health Log Analytics already automates the real-time parsing of health log data from sources such as Elasticsearch.  In Tokyo, customers with HLA can now query aggregate data on system health and on the Event Management application service map to better understand the overall health of a system and the services it may affect.  Visualizations enabled in Tokyo include reports, dashboards, and trend lines over time.  With a higher order view of Elasticsearch and other logs, operators have a better experience as they are no longer limited to a view of single event and the related health logs.  Using reporting they can better highlight patterns and spotlight potentially related issues in their service contexts and portfolios.  That helps everyone make more informed operational decisions and ultimately saves time and effort putting out full fires later. 

 Cloud Visibility Enhancement - the Cloud Resources Inventory dashboard created on the Next Experience now allows enterprise managers to view resources allocated to multiple providers over time and filter those reports on metadata such as platform, region, and account.  The performance analytics module also includes aggregate counts of each cloud resource and the error logs—giving these decision makers a comprehensive view of your multicloud strategy over time. The Cloud Migration Assessment tool allows decision makers to model the costs of software and systems hosted on the cloud to plan and track the migration process.  Finally, an enhanced AWS Service Graph connector (v1.5) and an updated Terraform connector speed up the time required to get to value for your organization as you adjust your multicloud strategy based on real data and build out your infrastructure-as-code capabilities. 

 

Intelligent CMDB Search - The CMDB query function already allows technical users familiar with the ServiceNow data model to build powerful relational queries. These queries can pull data from multiple tables inside and outside the CMDB. However, this function can be difficult to perform if a user doesn’t have prior knowledge of which fields contain the data they need or how the tables are related.​ 

Beginning with the Tokyo release, you can add the intelligent search feature to the CMDB workspace from the ServiceNow Store.​ 

Intelligent search allows any authorized technical user to query the CMDB using terms from common or natural language. Users can ask, “Which servers are located in San Diego?” or “Which windows servers have SQL Server 2012 software installed?” CMDB intelligent search guides the user with AI-provided suggestions for tables and relationships that match their plainly worded questions. 

Having led them to the correct data, intelligent search constructs a CMDB query that can be saved and used for future reporting or dashboards.​​    

CMDB Attestation with Smart Detection - An accurate and up-to-date CMDB is becoming increasingly important since it drives security awareness and other vital technology processes. This has led many regulatory bodies to require regular attestation of critical CIs in the CMDB such as those that touch payment card industry (PCI) or personally identifiable information (PII). The CMDB is already configured to allow customers to set up regular attestations of those CIs. ​ 

With the Tokyo release, users can reduce the amount of time and labor required for the regular attestation of CIs. This is made possible by a smart detection wizard which automatically attests CMDB items coming from recent discovery sources.​ 

Recap 

• Accelerated response to alerts – Trace alerts to recent changes in configuration settings. 
• Better visibility of health and cloud resources​ – ​See aggregate health settings and cloud inventory resources in regularly scheduled reports and/or dashboards. 
• Simple and automated CMDB function – Query related tables on the CMDB using natural language. Automate attestations.  Bring in AWS data using a plug-and-play connector. 

Other ITOM and CMDB features and enhancements of note – 

• IPv6 support for CMDB and IT Operations Management  
• Vendor specific discovery enhancements including Oracle Middleware Verification and Entrust Certificate workflow automation
• Kubernetes Discovery auto schedule creation
• Define multiple event rules with additional flexibility and a more powerful and intuitive interface
• ACC support enhancements including support for Air-gapped networks, discovery based on DNS names, and support for more OS and software editions 
• Governance enhancements including adding the Assume role for AWS, catalog-based remediation, and separation of the CCG engine from content packs
• CMDB Data Manager: cascade retire dependents CIS, set dependent policy, and clean up orphans
• Data Foundations Dashboard now include additional metrics and a more organized layout
• Terraform connector update 

Learn more  

These are just a few of the many new features coming to IT Operations Management in the Tokyo release. From here, review the release notes and product documentation to get additional detail. Then, schedule a conversation and demo with your account team or contact us here. Don’t forget the Customer Success Center is also available with essential resources to assist you in planning your upgrade. 

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