What’s New in Washington for ITOM Visibility?
Washington DC is sometimes portrayed as a hidebound, stuffy city. Having spent the better part of my career working in and around the area, I can personally witness that nothing is further from the truth! Despite, or maybe because of heavy regulations, I have found the IT professionals in Washington to be the most flexible, innovative, and responsive problem solvers I have worked with anywhere.
(Just for fun, here’s how the current iteration of publicly available generative AI “imagines” that contrast.)
From NASA to the FDIC, from the US State Department to the US Space Force, ServiceNow customers manage mission critical operations. In the spirit of that heroic side of Washington, ServiceNow is continuously fostering innovations that preserve our position as the leading provider of IT Operations Management whether in the public sector or the commercial sector. We understand the importance of mission. We are committed to providing the elevated user experiences found in the best point solutions—but fully integrated with cross-functional automation that is only available from a comprehensive IT platform.
In the Washington DC family release and March store updates, we are introducing a suite of features designed to move faster with discovery and deeper with visibility.
Crowdsource application discovery on a new Admin Workspace
ServiceNow is launching a new Discovery Admin Workspace with a bang—complete with a worldwide work party. Our platform can already employ AI to suggest application fingerprints. Now we’ll be streamlining their classification, pattern matching, and anonymous utilization across our vast customer base. It’s as simple as a single click. By opting into the discovery content service, our customers will be able to exponentially increase the scope and number of applications that can be seamlessly discovered while fractionalizing the time required to track new or unusual applications.
That simplicity is just the beginning—a Content 360 dashboard allows admins to stay on top on the entire process from Day One. Stay tuned for more functions coming on the Discovery Admin Workspace that will empower admins to set up faster and deliver more value for the many technology services that depend on trusted, up-to-date discovery data.
Requirements:
- ITOM Discovery v2 or Visibility v2
- Discovery Admin Workspace Store App
- ITOM Content Service Store App
See also Sree32’s excellent Blog post on the ITOM content service: https://www.servicenow.com/community/itom-blog/elevate-your-data-platform-strategy-with-itom-conten...
The Unified Map—a clear, single-pane window on your full technology stacks
With the integration of the Unified Map view to both the Content 360 and Service Map views, users can now transition to the CMDB workspace and the recently enhanced Unified Map view. Unified Maps consolidate the timeliness and flexibility of the Service Map view with the infinite configurability and power of the Dependency View. In one place, IT professionals now have a comprehensive, easily parsed overview of their full technology stacks. The ability to visualize both the business processes and the underlying IT infrastructure in one place enables quicker comprehension, more straightforward analysis, and better-curated decision-making for better IT service, IT asset, and IT portfolio management outcomes.
Requirements:
- ITOM Discovery v2 or Visibility v2
- Service Mapping Plus Store App (1.10 or later)
- CMDB Workspace (6.0 or later)
Cloud Native Operations (CNO) v2 – refine your Kubernetes visibility
In line with our culture of continuous improvement, the older CNO store app will be phased out by March 2025. Users are encouraged to transition to the newer CNO version 2, which offers updated functionalities and better alignment with IT norms and security requirements.
The CNO v2 is an important update for organizations leveraging Kubernetes. This new version offers a streamlined architecture for continuous point discovery, optimizing performance, and ensuring comprehensive visibility into containerized environments. This level of insight is vital for maintaining robust and responsive IT operations in modern cloud-native landscapes.
Requirements:
- ITOM Visibility v2 (or higher)
- Agent Client Collector for Visibility (v3.5 or later)
- Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns (v1.11 or later)
Agent-based pattern execution—map services in hard-to-reach places
The release also introduces the ability for agent-based execution of discovery patterns via the Agent Client Collector. This enhancement supports the discovery in environments where traditional agentless methods may not be feasible, thus offering greater capability and coverage in IT operations.
Requirements:
- ITOM Discovery v2 or Visibility v2
- Agent Client Collector Framework (v3.4 or later)
- Agent Client Collector for Visibility (v3.5 or later)
- Patterns and Agent Dependencies (v2.0)
- Service Mapping Plus Store App (1.10 or later)
This capability includes ML based Service Mapping. Agents execute discovery patterns which hoover up network traffic. That traffic can be analyzed by AI to trace the applications and services that underpin your critical business functions, even if they are hosted in highly secure or ephemeral architecture. And with more visibility comes more confidence in decision and trust in data and processes.
Other Washington Visibility features
The updated Agent Client Collector Framework (ACC-F) introduces an essential capability for secure and reliable connections: certificate rotation for client-side authentication on mid-less architecture. Additionally, the framework has been optimized to a lighter build, facilitating more efficient installations and updates, and minimizing system load.
- Agent Client Collector Framework (v3.4 or later)
Finally, Service Mapping now supports the selection of specific MID Servers to process Service Maps—or MID Affinity. This was the top voted idea by you, our customers!
- Service Mapping Plus Store App (1.10 or later)
Stay tuned for more innovation
Have a look around. Kick the tires. Engage with these new capabilities to fully realize the benefits of the Washington DC and store releases. We expect the enhanced visibility, streamlined discovery, and operational efficiency to yield significant improvements across your IT tools and processes.
