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ServiceNow Cloning preparations and best practices Article/ Blog

shubhamdubey
Mega Sage

‎01-27-2025 08:56 AM

Hi All,

 

Recently we have cloned our ServiceNow Dev & QA instance from Production instance. Based on our experience with cloning ServiceNow instances, I would like to share best practices, pre-clone activities, post-clone activities, and the importance of configuring data preservation and table exclusions effectively.

 

Best Practices for ServiceNow Cloning:

  1. Communicate Clearly
  • Notify all stakeholders about the cloning schedule, downtime, and purpose of the activity.
  1. Use Clone Exclusions Thoughtfully
  • Exclude tables and data that are environment-specific or sensitive to avoid overwriting critical configurations.
  1. Leverage Data Preservation Settings
  • Preserve target instance data where necessary to retain unique configurations and records.
  1. Document and Validate
  • Maintain a checklist of excluded tables, preserved data, and post-clone actions. Validate these settings before and after cloning.
  1. Take back up of Update Set from Target instance.

 

Pre-Clone Activities:

  1. Plan and Communicate
  • Confirm the cloning schedule and inform all relevant teams about the impact on the target instance.
  • Share a detailed timeline and any required actions before cloning.

 

  1. Exclude Tables
  • Define tables to exclude during cloning to retain environment-specific configurations. Common exclusions include:
  • Integrations: sys_properties, oauth_entity, and API credentials.
  • MID Server Configurations: ecc_agent table.
  • Exclude the Multi SSO tables
  • Logs and Temporary Data: Exclude system logs, demo data, or irrelevant records.
  • Audit Logs, Event Logs, Email Logs, System Logs

 

  1. Set Data Preservation
  • Identify and configure preserve data rules for tables that must remain unchanged in the target instance
  • Custom configurations or local integrations.
  • Preserve SAML properties
  • Preserve SAML certificates
  • Preserve SAML users
  • Admin and Developer Accounts, user accounts with admin and development roles remain intact for post-clone activities.
  • User Preferences: Preserve user-specific settings and preferences.
  • Preserve email properties and outbound email settings.
  • Preserve instance-specific URLs and integration settings
  • Preserve any custom applications
  • Keep MID server configurations
  • Preserve settings related to external system integrations

 

  1. Backup Target Instance Data
  • Export critical records, system properties, and configurations/update sets from the target instance that might need restoration.

 

  1. Test Clone Settings
  • Validate your exclude and preserve data rules to ensure they meet the cloning objectives.

 

Post-Clone Activities:

  1. Verify Excluded Tables and Preserved Data
  • Check that excluded tables remain untouched and preserved data is intact in the target instance.
  • Unique workflows or local customizations should be unaffected.

 

  1. Reconfigure Target-Specific Settings
  • Update environment-specific configurations, such as: Integration endpoints and credentials.

 

  1. Validate Core Functionalities
  • Test critical processes such as login, incident creation, service catalog workflows, and integrations.

 

  1. Communicate Completion
  • Notify stakeholders that cloning is complete and provide a summary of actions taken.

 

Below are the few documentations that we went through before cloning:

 

Post Cloning checklist:

 

Regards

Shubham

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