Lifecycle stage and status for end of support assets

[Mihai Kiss]

Hello,

We are investigating the option to use the new lifecycle fields, and we were facing with the following situation.

There are situations in which an asset is purchased, it is received and kept in stock, but will not became operational before reaching end of warranty (end of support)

It is not clear for us how to reflect this as a status in the asset field.

https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/rome-servicenow-platform/page/product/csdm-implementation/concept/csdm-lifecycle-states.html

Do you have any experience / advise on this?

Thank you,

Mihai

[SebastianKunzke]

Hi,

There is maybe a misunderstanding of the status "End of support".
As far I understood the lifecycle status, it means you as organization will not support the device anymore, which is already in the stage "operational".

The end of warranty I would control over a date field. And in case someone wants to set the device into the operational stage, it will be moved directly to "End of support" status. For the time the asset is in stock, the status is accurate. And from time to time you would need to check, if you want to retire the device based on the warranty date.

But please be careful: Because end of warranty could also be, that the vendor warranty is done, but you as an organization still supports the device.

Hope that helps.

Sebastian

[CMDB Whisperer]

It seems to me the truth here is that the asset itself has a different lifecycle from the product model.  It is not the asset that reaches end of support; it is the model that reaches end of support (either by the manufacturer or by the organization).  The retirement of the asset should be driven by several factors.  One is the warranty expiration (although depending on the asset you could extend the warranty), and the other is its underpinning support and maintenance from the manufacturer.  If the manufacturer or the organization discontinues support for a particular product, then any operational assets should be retired or replaced.  But until you do, the asset state does not change.  It is simply an operational asset that shouldn't be operational because its product model has reached end of support.  So you can create business rules, reports, etc. to take corrective or preventative action based on your organization's needs.  And ultimately, it is best to view this in the context of an overall technology portfolio, using APM and TPM, so that you know not just when your aging assets will be coming up, but what business critical applications and application services may be impacted by them, so that you can avoid unwanted impact to the business due to aging hardware/software.

[scott_lemm]

@Mihai Kiss thank you for your question.

The core topic for the Life Cycle Stage = Operational and the Life Cycle Stage Status = End of Support is RISK. There are many types of End of Support as documented on a product model. Additionally, contractual support often referenced as extended maintenance contracts may be involved. The combination of RISK and documented End Of Support are the critical elements of the use case we were solving.

Our Use Case:

An operational in use technology, hardware or logical Asset/CI, has reached the end of its support. This support could be internal or external but often is external. Because this asset/CI is operational (in use) there is risk no only to said Asset/CI but to all dependent Asset/CIs. We need a mechanism that can identify said Asset/CI is operational but may pose an elevated Risk to other Asset/CIs. For this purpose, we chose to utilize a Life Cycle Stage Status to flag the Asset/CI. By flagging the Asset/CI, other workflow mechanisms can act on the data. 

Your Use Case:

An asset that is in stock is not operational and does not pose a Risk to other operational Assets/CIs thus there is no similar Life Cycle Stage Status for Inventory. Existing ServiceNow mechanism can utilize the Product Lifecycles found on the Product Models to optimize stockroom management. For example, reports that can show Assets in Inventory where their product models have associated Product Lifecycles that have reached EOL. 

ServiceNow does not feel "End of Support" is necessary for an Asset/CI that is in Inventory because the risk level associated to its end of support is not raised to the level of an operational Asset/CI with dependencies to other operational Asset/CIs. 

Options for your Use Case:

Aside from the suggestions already received...

Managing the Asset as a CI enables the functionality and flexibility of the new CMDB Data Manager. This new capability allows for the use of Policy to manage and act upon data as appropriate. For example, you could create a policy related to the Support/Warranty expiration date of CIs that are in Inventory. When that policy is run it can create a collection of CIs and task a Group or User to investigate via a workflow you determine/create.

Hope this helps,
Scott