Innovation Lab Store Applications Review: #1 Clone Admin Console

[Martin Ivanov]

TLDR:

Innovation Lab offers a store app for managing clones in a single page. You can find more information about the Application and its installation here.

Introduction

As everything in life – mood, economy, weather, climate, etc. – ServiceNow administration is also following a repetitive pattern. One of the activities that (should) happen at least twice a year is the System clone. It is an important part of the upgrade process. Best practice is to clone Production environment over sub-production environments and start the upgrade process from the lowest one, usually Development.

Luckily, ServiceNow has a functionality in place, allowing for a smooth and straightforward clone process, especially for seasoned admins/developers. But understanding all the different configurations and their role in the process might be a bit confusing at first.

To ease the process and put everything in a single page, here comes the Clone Admin Console application.  

NB: Clone admin console application does not add any new functionality to the Platform. It is an overlay on top of the existing functionality. If you want to learn more about System clone, please refer to the official documentation. In one of my articles, I also provide me personal findings and things that I learned during working with System Clone. If this is your first time reading about System clone, I do recommend going through these before going through the current article.

What it is

• Clone admin console is a Store application, published by Innovation Lab, which is intended to collect clone-related information in a single page, along with some key definitions and FAQ.
• It has a reference to a Support Knowledge article with all clone-related FAQs.

What problems it solves

• System clone settings are a bit confusing when one comes first to them. Clone profiles, Targets, Exclusions and Data preservers are multiple options one can configure to ensure smooth and secure clone, without sensitive data exposure.
• Clone admin console provides a modern interface, an overlay on top of the functionality that is already packed with the ServiceNow main releases.
• The main benefit of the application is the single-page view of all aspects of System clone in 3 tabs:
  • Home
    • Active clones, with an option to filter based on State
    • Quick button to request a clone
    • FAQs and KB quick access
  • Configurations:
    • Clone instances and
    • Clone profiles
  • Definitions:
    • Exclusions
    • Preservers
    • Cleanup scripts

Screenshots

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Martin Ivanov
Community & Developer MVP 2023