ServiceNow Discovery: Find the Gold

[sarah_manning]

The best IT thinkers understand that you need a lightweight discovery technology built on the same platform as the ITSM functionality it supports. Much like attaching GPS to a metal detector.

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ServiceNow Discovery, with application dependency mapping, is agentless and is designed specifically to populate and maintain an accurate ServiceNow CMDB. "Discovered" information is used throughout all ServiceNow applications to automate closed-loop change verification, perform unauthorized change detection and impact analysis, and enable hardware and software asset management.

Managing all IT assets and applications in one single platform provides transparency into the IT infrastructure and immediate business value. For many ServiceNow customers, engaging Discovery has led to an increase in IT agility — and in some cases a gold mine of return on investment.

Discover New Functionality

Previously, Publicis Groupe's four global regions used a total of 12 different tools to support basic ITSM functions. Sharing work and making customizations to support business processes were impossible. So, Publicis Groupe made ServiceNow Discovery and Incident Management mandatory in order to identify relationships and populate the CMDB. Now, just one tool supports 45,000 employees in 750 agencies across 104 countries with stability and accuracy.

PostMedia Network worked with a restricting legacy tool whose servers and network were managed in silos. The CMDB comprised a handful of spreadsheets that provided little transparency. After PostMedia Network implemented ServiceNow Discovery, the veil over asset and component management was lifted, and a granular level of visibility was attained — enabling IT to directly support and affect the business.

For Holland America, Discovery supports more proactive and informed service delivery to 15 ships visiting 350 ports around the globe. Executives and service desk managers alike have instant visibility into actionable ITSM data that was not available previously.

Trust the CMDB

Consumer goods conglomerate Kimberly-Clark lacked trust in its CMDB. With 850,000 CIs and 1.5 million IP addresses a day to manage, accuracy and asset security were issues. IT had no ability to map and track its entire environment and see relationships between devices. After implementing ServiceNow Discovery right out of the box, along with Internet authentication service discovery, a team of just 5 can manage it as well as support other applications. CMDB maintenance is less hands-on now, which opens up the opportunity for attention on more manual relationships, and provides staff with accurate information. "We can trust our CMDB now," said Nathan Gee, Kimberly-Clark senior analyst.

Uncover Massive Savings

One customer had been using ServiceNow Discovery and Software Asset Management to manage, among other things, VMware licenses for its IT users. Over a two-day period, the customer uncovered three major loopholes that saved a total of $315,519. First, the customer discovered Support and Subscription fees for unused VMware licenses costing $28,659. Next, the customer realized it was paying $14,400 annually to an outsourcer for VMware servers that did not exist. Finally, a whopping $143,295 was being spent on extra, unused VMware licenses! For this customer, that meant the ability to double its VMware environment without having to buy additional licenses. In sum, for VMware licenses alone, this customer uncovered $315,519 in savings.

Deliver Immediate ROI

As soon as it began using ServiceNow Discovery, a large government agency received a return on investment of $180,000. Previously, assets were managed in spreadsheets and annual inventory was manual. The agency implemented Discovery and immediately isolated a number of Microsoft SQL database implementations that were deployed and unknown to exist. Finding these licenses, and uncovering the $180,000 that would have been owed at year-end, paid for the agency's ServiceNow implementation in just one month of use.

The ability to find and share sensitive IT asset data across applications, databases and groups can not only improve IT agility and visibility, but in some cases can unearth hidden sinkholes that translate into immediate savings and ROI. For these customers, ServiceNow Discovery has helped save money, free up resources and prove IT's value to the business. Try ServiceNow Discovery for yourself. What will you find?