Quick Start Guide for Visibility

[Jithin Thomas]

If you're beginning the IT Operations Management (ITOM) Visibility journey, this guide provides essential information and resources to effectively implement and use ServiceNow's ITOM Visibility product.

 

Guide overview:

Here's an overview of the topics we'll cover in the guide:

• Introduction

• Key features

• Business outcomes and benefits

• Who benefits

• ITOM Visibility and Common Service Data Model (CSDM) reference

• Prerequisites

• Resource library

 

Introduction

ServiceNow's ITOM Visibility is a comprehensive solution that provides a complete view of your IT network and services. It's a suite of 10 features that collectively aid in the discovery and management of IT resources by identifying and collecting data on various IT infrastructure components and updating the Configuration Management Database (CMDB) with this information. This solution supports strategic IT operations by increasing efficiency and reducing risk, enabling alignment of technology policies with business initiatives, and ensuring governance.

 

Key features

• Discovery: Discover your entire estate configuration and dependency relationships automatically.

• Service Mapping: Gain business context for your infrastructure and applications.

• Tag Governance: Define tagging policies (standards), audit tags for compliance, and remediate tags in the CMDB and cloud.

• Certificate Inventory and Management: Discover and manage the lifecycle of TLS certificates.

• Firewall Audits and Reporting: Discover firewall security policies and manage the firewall policy audit process.

• Agent Client Collector for Visibility (ACC-V): Conducts push-based discovery to fill agentless discovery gaps and enable automation directly to endpoints.

• Service Graph connectors: Ingest configuration data from certified CMDB integrations.

• Multisource CMDB: Manage the golden attribute for multiple discovery sources and change on the fly if needed.

• Data Collection for Oracle Global Licensing and Advisory Services: Oracle verified solution for automating the discovery of installation and usage data for Database, Database options, and Middleware.

• Kubernetes Visibility Agent: Continuous visibility of Kubernetes platforms and their components as they spin up, change, or spin down.

 

Business outcomes and benefits

• Service management: Provides a unified, connected view of the entire IT network and the services it supports, enhancing the ability to manage and deliver services to users more effectively.

• Cost optimization: Analyzes cloud asset costs and identifies opportunities to save money and optimize operations through the Cloud Insights application.

• Security: Visualizes security incidents in the context of application services, helping to prioritize and resolve threats based on their impact.

• CMDB accuracy: Establishes an accurate and trustworthy CMDB, which is essential for strategic decision-making, governance, and reducing operational risks.

• Proactive insights: Helps prevent outages and streamline processes by providing proactive insights and continuous monitoring.

 

Who benefits

• ITOM Health

• ITOM Optimization

• IT Service Management

• Customer Service Management

• Strategic Portfolio Management

• Security Operations

 

ITOM Visibility and CSDM reference

ServiceNow's ITOM Visibility product consists of Discovery and Service Mapping, which identify and update information about devices and applications in the CMDB. For more information, see ITOM Visibility and CSDM reference.

 

ITOM visibility and CMDB tables

ITOM Visibility is crucial in managing and using Configuration Management Database (CMDB) tables to enhance operational efficiency and provide accurate service mapping. It is integral to various ServiceNow products, ensuring optimal application performance and infrastructure management.

ITOM Visibility considerations for the CSDM framework

When implementing the CSDM framework, consider using Service Mapping to define application services. Alternative methods include:

• Manual definition: Manually specifying the application services.
• Dynamic CI group: Creating a group based on a query to define the services.
• Tag-based approach: Utilizing tags, which are commonly used for Cloud integrations.

 

Prerequisites

To implement ServiceNow's ITOM Visibility, you need to:

• Activate the Discovery and Service Mapping plugins: These require an ITOM Visibility subscription. For details, see Request Discovery and Request Service Mapping.
• Define users and configure credentials: Allows ITOM Visibility to access and interact with the applications and devices within your organization's network. For details, see Prerequisites for performing top-down discovery using Service Mapping.
• Licensing agreement: Your organization must have a valid ITOM Visibility subscription and a contract for the specific licensing options. For more information, see ITOM/OT SU Licensing and subscriptions.

 

Resource library

• Getting Started with ITOM Visibility: This webinar recording will help you understand each feature's capabilities and provide the next steps to ensure you build a healthy CMDB.

• ITOM Visibility blog: Helps you understand the capabilities of most ITOM Visibility features and how to use them.

• ITOM Visibility Success Pack: This success pack supports customers looking to create a unified, connected view of their entire IT landscape and the services it supports.

• ITOM Visibility use case: Summary of ITOM Visibility use cases.

• ITOM Visibility plugins and applications: Summary of plugins and applications installed with ITOM Visibility.

• Discovery Quick Start Guide: This guide gives you all the information you need for successful implementation of the ServiceNow Discovery application, along with proven guidance, best practices, and links to key resources.

• CMDB Quick Start Guide: If you're beginning your CMDB journey, this guide is the perfect starting point. It will help you activate and gain value from your CMDB and serve as a useful reference as our products continue to evolve.