Mapped application service?

[Toby2]

Hi all 

We are in the early stage of crawl. 

After updating to Paris we have noticed that 'Application service' is now converted to 'Mapped Application Service'

I can't seem to find any information regarding this transition. 

Does anyone know what to make of this? 

Thanks 

[CasperJT · Accepted solution]

Hi Toby,

The cmdb_ci_service_discovered (formerly Application Service now Mapped Application Service) was 'pushed down' in the hierarchy and has gotten a new parent cmdb_ci_service_auto, which is now called Application Service.

If you use the new CSDM-based workflow for creating application services (Application services | ServiceNow Docs) the system will automatically map your CI's to the relevant classes.

Discovered

Service Mapping discovers application services using patterns and by following traffic connections.

Pattern-based discovery creates precise and complete application services that represent the service-centric view of the IT infrastructure. It creates a high-fidelity map that is well suited to managing mission-critical application services.

In addition, it provides visibility of cloud-native services such as compute, load balancers, and API gateways. You can use service entry points such as S3 buckets, and API gateways, Lambda functions, and functions to map services. It can also detect Lambda to Lambda calls and Lambda to RDS connections to build dynamic service maps.

Top-down method maps VMs on-premises and in public clouds. However, it requires these VMs to be fully discovered for the top-down discovery to determine which applications are running in the VM. If a VM isn't fully discovered, use the tag-based method to bridge the gap (see later in this document). Tag-based mapping also maps containers, that you cannot map using the top-down discovery.

Discovered application services have the service classification of application service. They are stored in the Mapped Application Service [cmdb_ci_service_discovered] table.

Dynamic CI Group

These application services are based on CMDB groups, whose members populate the application service.

If created from the wizard, the service classification is application service, and if created from the legacy Event Management or Service Mapping UI, the classification is technical service. Application services of the Dynamic CI Group type are stored in the Dynamic CI Group [cmdb_ci_query_based_service] table.

Tag-basedA tag is a label that consists of a key-value pair. Your organization may use tags to categorize its assets, to enhance query and reporting capabilities. Discovery and Cloud Provisioning and Governance can discover tags used by all major cloud providers and container ecosystems. Once the tags are discovered, Service Mapping can create application services based on these tags. For example, you can use tags to map all application services your organization uses in the production environment in the EMEA region.

Tag-based application services have the service classification of application service. They are stored in the Tag-based Application Service [cmdb_ci_service_by_tags] table.

Created Manually

With manual mapping, application owners manually document the applications, IT infrastructure, and relationships that support each application service. This methodology is the best fit for configuration items that are not fully discoverable due to security access issues. For example, IPS devices which support an intrusion prevention service for the security business unit.

Try to avoid manual mapping wherever possible. It’s incredibly time consuming to map services manually, and often the information needed for mapping is not available due to evolving technology and a lack of processes that track and document the infrastructure dependencies needed for application context. And, whenever subsequent changes are made to the application service topology, the service map must be manually updated.

Manually created application services have the service classification of application service. These services are stored in the Mapped Application Service [cmdb_ci_service_discovered] table.

Dynamic

A dynamic application service includes only CIs that are part of CI relationships stored in the CMDB CI Relationship [cmdb_rel_ci] table. The system automatically updates dynamic application services to reflect changes to CI relationships. You create dynamic application services by converting legacy business services into application services of the dynamic type.

Dynamic application services have the service classification of application service. Dynamic application services are stored in Calculated Application Services [cmdb_ci_service_calculated] table.

Hope this helps.

Best regards,
Casper

[Pratiksha]

Any idea how to add a dependency on tag-based mapping? 

[Jason Gullion]

Hi @CasperJT , 

Understanding that manual mapping of application services is less than ideal, we are in a position where we do not have Service Mapping yet and so are stuck with some form of manual mapping. As you say, the manual process of mapping, let's say Application Service to Server (again, less than ideal mapping), is very cumbersome and click heavy. We attempted to import the relationships between Application Service and Server, but we are not getting the "Manual Entry Point" entries in the Entry Points table and the Application Service is not converting to Mapped Application Service the way that it does when you use the CSDM wizard for mapping Business Application to Application Service to Server. 

Is it possible to at least do an initial load of these relationships through Import Sets so that we can then have Application Service Owners maintain the data going forward? Any guidance on options for import sets would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Jason

[TaylorJ]

The solution that I have found from migrating data from the cmdb_ci_appl table, Class = Application is to migrate to the cmdb_ci_service table with the Class = Business Service with Service Classification = Application Service. 

This will allow you to move through each migrated record and determine if the old application needs to be converted to an Application Service or keep it as a Business Service since the definition of what an application service is has been updated by ServiceNow.  You have the option with this solution to now use the button in the Business Service view called "Convert to Application Service".  The mapping features will be available to you for both Calculated and Mapped application service.