Introduction
Service mapping is a process that establishes how underlying applications and IT infrastructure deliver business services.Using the service maps makes it easier to identify the root cause of service outages and degradation and prioritize resolution of infrastructure issues based on business impact. It also plays an important role in business continuity, data center migration planning and compliance.
Service Mapping Life Cycle:
Mapping a specific service to its infrastructure consists of five key stages:
Before determining the right implementation approach, some customer-specific decisions must be taken considering the different stages of the service mapping life cycle.Decisions and their relevant stages are:
1. Environment identification during the Start stage .
2. Entry point identification during the Map stage.
3. Refining the service map during the Fix stage.
4. Maintaining the map during the Approve stage.
Approach 1: Environment identification
Service mapping of an application can be done in non-production environments and once approved moved to production environments.
- From Non-production instance to the production instance of ServiceNow. Once the non-production infrastructure of the service is discovered and approved, the production infrastructure of the service should be identified.This approach follows three steps
Step 1: Non-production instance – Non-production infrastructure
Step 2: Non-production instance – Production infrastructure
Step 3: Production instance – Production infrastructure
Advantage:
- Most of the issues will be fixed before the production infrastructure is discovered.
- The production ServiceNow instance will be more stable.
Dis-Advantages:
- Connectivity from non-production instance to production infrastructure needs additional security approvals which would further delay the implementation.
- Multiple ports must be opened from several servers to management,instrumentation and discovery Mid servers.
2.This process involves a non-production ServiceNow instance that discovers the production infrastructure of the service.The solution is moved to the production instance of ServiceNow Instance.
Step 1: Non-production instance – Production infrastructure.
Step 2: Production instance – Production infrastructure.
Advantages
- Service maps are created in lesser time as mapping is required for only one infrastructure environment.
Dis-advantages
- Connectivity from non-production instance to production infrastructure needs additional security approvals which would further delay the implementation.
3. Production instance of the ServiceNow to discover the production instance and non-production infrastructure. Once approved the production infrastructure should be discovered.
Step 1: Production instance – Non- production infrastructure.
Step 2: Production instance – Production infrastructure.
Advantages
-
Service maps can be created in lesser time.
-
The solution need not be migrated to a different environment.
Dis-advantages
-
Making changes in the production environment can affect the current discovery.
-
The production ServiceNow instance is less stable.
Approach 2: Entry point Identification
1. Entry point is the first tier application on a host CI where the end user receives the service. Service
Mapping starts the mapping process from this point.
2. Entry points may vary depending on the nature of the service a TCP port, a URL, a SQL port can all
serve as entry points to a service. Service Mapping comes with a list of pre configured entry points
types and the attributes configured for the entry points depend on the type.
3. Entry points can be manually entered one by one, or imported from a CSV allowing for multiple
services to be discovered in parallel. Another option is to run discovery against the management IP
addresses of all load balance's in an enterprise and Service Mapping will automatically provide a list
of service candidates.
Approach 3: Refining the service map
The service mapping process consists of the following steps which are further described below:
- Discovery of the service using patterns.
- Discovery of the service using traffic.
- Customizing patterns.
- Fixing The service map.
- Turning off discovery of the service using traffic.
- Reviewing the service map.
- Publishing the service map.
Approach 4: Maintaining the service map
Service maps tend to change due to changes in the applications. To ensure that the service maps are updated, preconfigured discovery as well as custom schedules can be created.
Discovery Schedules:
Service mapping includes a preconfigured generic schedule for discovering all CIs of an application type CIs of the application are derived from the CMDB CI application table.
The generic schedule triggers the discovery of all the organization’s applications once daily.
In addition to this, there is a preconfigured schedule for discovering load balance's derived from the CMDB CI load balancer service table.
Service mapping checks whether the device hosting the application CI exists in the CMDB. If not, service mapping triggers a discovery to detect the host.The information on the host is updated in the CMDB during horizontal discovery.
Discovery schedules can be created for different application CI's as listed below:
- For CI types – Service mapping will discover all the CI's that belong to a particular CI type.
- For specific CI – Service mapping will discover only the CI's specified for the schedule.
Checking and troubleshooting service maps:
Service mapping discovery patterns ensure that only the relevant CI's are discovered for each business service. It is important to regularly monitor critical service maps for transparency and accuracy. Some key monitoring tasks include:
- Hiding unwanted CI's.
- Hiding topology cycles, i.e., connections returning to the same host.
- Hiding traffic-based CI's.
- Merging CI errors.
- Setting map indicators to display related records.
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Regards,
Manjunatha
