"Integrating Azure DevOps with ServiceNow should be straightforward, right? Not always. When you dive into the Azure Marketplace for extensions, you'll quickly discover a handful of extensions that all seem to do the same thing: connect your pipelines and CI/CD processes to ServiceNow. But which one's actually right one to use?" While my previous post discussed ServiceNow's perspective on these integrations, this article focuses specifically on the Azure DevOps Marketplace extensions.
ServiceNow DevOps
This extension has to be installed as part ServiceNow DevOps Change Velocity while onboarding Azure DevOps as a tool.
Its primary purpose is to flow rich, contextual data (builds, deployments, test results, work items) from your Azure DevOps pipelines into ServiceNow's DevOps module. This data then automates and governs your Change Management processes in ServiceNow, accelerating releases while maintaining control.
Key Differentiator: This isn't merely about triggering a change. It provides the detailed evidence needed for automated change approvals based on policies defined in ServiceNow. It truly closes the loop between rapid development and formal governance. Beyond ADO, the ServiceNow DevOps application integrates with other toolchains like Jira, Jenkins, and GitHub, offering holistic product context. It's built and formally supported by ServiceNow. The ServiceNow CI/CD extension targets a very specific scenario: implementing Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) for applications built on the ServiceNow platform itself. Its primary purpose is to automate the deployment of your custom ServiceNow applications from development to higher instances, including triggering Automated Test Framework (ATF) tests. This manages the CI/CD pipeline for your ServiceNow native apps. Key Differentiator: This extension is exclusively for ServiceNow-native application development and deployment, not for integrating ServiceNow with external software. While effective, other CI/CD methods exist within ServiceNow, like App Engine Studio (AES) Pipelines. This extension generally does not have formal support from ServiceNow.
ServiceNow Change Management
This extension is used to interact with the "Azure Pipeline" application within ServiceNow, a product of the Microsoft Alliance.
Its primary purpose is to facilitate the direct creation and update of ServiceNow Change Requests from within your Azure Pipelines. This helps enforce basic change management governance for your ADO deployments.
Key Differentiator: While it automates change creation from pipelines, it typically doesn't automatically bring in detailed artifacts (work items, test results) for policy-driven auto-approval like the "ServiceNow DevOps" extension does. Its focus is on the automated creation of the change record itself. Support for this extension is by Microsoft.
Conclusion
It's clear that despite similar naming conventions, the "pipelines," "CI/CD," and "Change Management" extensions offer fundamentally distinct functionalities and intended use cases. From an Azure DevOps perspective, understanding these differences is crucial for building an efficient and effective integration. Each extension serves a unique purpose, impacting how you manage governance, data flow, and specific automation between your ADO pipelines and ServiceNow. As mentioned in previous post any integration approach chosen must rigorously adhere to your organization's overarching integration strategy and undergo a thorough technical governance review. This ensures consistency, maintainability, and long-term success of your connected platforms.
