NOTE: MY POSTINGS REFLECT MY OWN VIEWS AND DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT THE VIEWS OF MY EMPLOYER, ACCENTURE.
DIFFICULTY LEVEL: INTERMEDIATE
Assumes you have a good intermediate level of knowledge and/or familiarity with ServiceNow, and some familiarity with setting up MID Servers.
When I originally wrote this article, in April of 2016, I was creating missing ServiceNow documentation in the Wiki (remember that resource?). Since the installation process has changed pretty significantly since then; in this article I bring a couple of tips and tricks to installing a personal MID Server for your Personal Developer Instance.
The .msi file provided by ServiceNow would install on any Windows-based machine. Well things change. ServiceNow decided to force the .msi to be a Windows Server operating system-only installer (not sure why this unannounced and very strange modification, but I'll go with it), and for the PDI user? An undocumented mystery. No-kidding. A check-box at the bottom of the download form that, when checked, shows you a Windows and/or Linux compressed file. Simple instructions: un-compress the file and install it by drag-and-drop.
Since there was no installer you will be the one doing the configuration. Fortunately, there is now documentation in docs for that:
- Navigate to this docs site: https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/vancouver-servicenow-platform/page/product/mid-server/concept/mid...
- Search for: Manually install a MID Server on Windows in the article.
- Follow the instructions for installing the server, but stop before configuring it.
So, why would you want to install a personal MID Server?
- Play with Discovery on your PDI
- Play with Service Mapping on your PDI
- Mess with Discovery/SM patterns
- Mess around with Flow Designer/Integration hub
- Mess around with Workflows/Orchestration
- As a training/teaching tool for configuring a MID Server
And I am very sure there is a lot more (Event Management anyone?)!
After you get the MID Server installed I highly recommend doing the following steps for setup:
So, here is the process I came up with for setting up my own laptop-run MID Server, which worked well for my needs around both Discovery and Orchestration testing. This set-up can be installed on any desktop or laptop machine running either Windows or Linux (the example below was done on Windows).
Note: I would recommend installing the latest version of PowerShell on your proposed MID Server box (the minimum would be Powershell 2). You may also find connectivity issues between your local machine and your ServiceNow instance if you are on your company's network. These will need to be worked out with your local network administrator before the process described here can function.
Setting Up a Local MID Server
Note: Do this after you extract the MID Server files, but before you configure the MID Server. Steps 1 thru 4 in the docs install article.
1. Log onto your Personal Developer Instance (PDI).
2. Navigate to: User Administration > Users
a. Create a new User: Name: mid_user; Password: your favorite password
3. Now we need to create a group. It is a best practice to create a group (even for one user), then add the roles to the group, and the users to the group. You control a user's access through group membership.
- Navigate to: User Administration > Groups
- Create a new group (Name: MIDServers) and then Save.
- Add the role mid_server
- Add the user mid_user
Now you are ready to configure your MID Server. Complete steps 5 through 7 on the docs MID Server install article.
Connecting to Your Local MID Server
Now back to the ServiceNow instance in your browser!
1. Navigate on your instance to Mid Server > Servers
2. After a few minutes you should see your new MID Server with the name you gave it spinning along happily.
3. You can now complete step 8 on the docs MID Server install article (validate your MID Server).
There you have it! That should get you up and rolling to be able to then go to the Discovery application (you need to install the plugin first) on your PDI and see if you can now discovery your own laptop/desktop device.
Enjoy!
Steven Bell.
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Originally published on: 4-18-2016 12:02 PM
I updated the code and brought the article into alignment with my new formatting standard.
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