Entry points in service mapping

[Sudharshan Mohi]

We are inititating with service mapping and would like to know what is Entry point to be considered and need more information on this which ease to make understand for customer on requirement.

[Sajilal]

Service Mapping starts the discovery and mapping process for every application service from the entry point you define for it. ServiceNow offers lot of OOTB entry point which can be leveraged. Usually its either a URL or combination of IP address & port. Service mapping starts mapping process from this Point.

Example: to map your Email Application Service for the client, you define the IP address of the email server as an entry point in the Service map for the Email application to be discovered.

Please mark helpful/correct if it helped resolve your query.

Thanks,
Saji

[Sudharshan Mohi]

Do we have VPN as well for few of the applications. Is VPN also considered one of the entry point as well ?

[Mary Vanatta1]

Think about all the different ways to approach Service Mapping besides the Top Down approach.

Dynamic CI mapping - best fit for small applications that are easily grouped by creating a CMDB group from a query using the CMDB Query Builder.  A consideration is that it only lists matching CIs no visual service map or impact tree.  Need to leverage operational status when using queries.


Manual Mapping - best fit for small application services or mainframes that do not change much and have high availability.  Use the Application Service wizard and select Manual in the "Add a population method."  You can add the server CIs to the Application Service. The Servers if using the Discovery product will have the Application Dependency mapping to show relationships

Tag Based Mapping - Mapping CIs to services with cloud native/containers laden and virtual machine environments (using the tags created in Azure/AWS.  Consideration is to leverage when services rarely change or contain a few CIs.


Connection Suggestions - Use with any application that has a known running process, or COTS application that deviates from standard ports or server not showing an outbound connection. 
Process fingerprinting and Application fingerprinting, best fit for homegrown can be used individually or with Pattern (Top Down) Service Mapping. 
Consideration is to use instead of building a new connection section in a pattern, need to turn on Service Mapping Plus.  

Top Down - recommended for mission critical application services for on premise and legacy applications, surgical mapping and is the most granular. 
Entry points are URL, TCP, DB Connection String



Many considerations for Top Down

Videos on You-tube SN Community
Top Down Approach
Machine Learning (Connection Suggestions
Tag Based Mapping

Dynamic CI Groups  (found in Now Create Workshop decks for CMDB, CSDM and Service Mapping) 
and a CMDB deep dive covers this as well.

[Sudharshan Mohi]

Thanks Mary. You mentioned Entry points are URL, TCP, DB Connection String.

Can you provide few examples of DB connection string and what exactly are those which can be considered Entry points for service mapping.