ServiceNow Design and Assign Enhancements
It is critical for network planners to have access to a reliable single source of truth with accurate network inventory as they plan out their network builds. Saving CAPEX is critical in the current landscape where dynamic workload planning and execution underscores the need for automation simplicity. Having the capability to plan a network build and with a few clicks move the changes or completed build from planning to production – simplifies the rollout of new software and hardware while maintain inventory that is reliable and accurate.
ServiceNow Network Inventory Washington release introduces, as part of design and assign enhancements, the capability of supporting inventory lifecycle management from forecasting, planning, and designing to activating, maintaining and decommission. The capability to revise, design and implement advanced planning emphasizes the importance of offering network simplification through task automation. Below is a description of the enhancements that are currently available and will be the baseline for the following ServiceNow functionality implementation examples.
- Revise (change/modification handling)
- Network Inventory in actively being monitored in operational status.
- Action Performed: Customer has submitted a request to relocated the customer site.
2. Design
- The modification feature of Design and assign allocates a new site and ONTs, while also facilitating the sharing of ESS/ONT connectivity
- Action Performed: As part of the planning stage, VLAN002 shall be created in planning with shared and new resources in this example.
- Automatically Activate New Plans while Dcomissioning outdated plans
- This functionality enables the switching of new plans into production while removing old plans After the network is activated at the new site, any planning related items from step 2 will transition to the operational state while the older plans will be removed.
- Action Performed: Inventory that was operational in step (2) and not part of the planning process, will reach end-of-life
Lifecycle cascading along with planned revision support are additional features developed and released in TNI Washington release that are implemented in order to create the design and assign planning (whatif) scenarios. The following planning methodologies are supported within the Washington release for TNI:
- Modifications are supported both with or without creating a new revision of the connection.
- As an example if there is an operational outage where someone was performing a rerouting in the network. Changes can be made directly on the configuration item without creating a revision.
- If this is a planned activity where the user would like to design and manage all the changes that will need to be implemented, this is where the user will have the option to choose with revision or without revision. If revision is checked then a revision circuit will be created which will incorporate that the necessary changes performed by the user.
- A physical connection end point can be modified to relocate a physical connection from one end point to another.
- This enables the capability to move physical equipment from one port to another port for example or to move the end point to another equipment
- A logical connection end point can be modified to also relocate a logical connection from one end point to another.
- The logical connection end point can be changed as per end user preference from one interface to another.
- The capability to add or remove a member a Link Aggregation Group belonging to the same equipment to enable the modification (increase or decrease) of the the the LAG capacity.
- There is an existing capability within TNI where user can design a link aggregation, the adjacent and all the interfaces that need to be part of the LAG, on submission it creates a link aggregation by creating the lag ports automatically.
- An example a user has created a link aggregation with two members. There can be a situation where the capacity is exhausted and one additional member would need to be added. TNI capability will allow the selection of additional members that can be added to a lag. The converse can also take place where there is a 30G lag for example that is underutilized, design and assign functionality can remove some of the members by deselecting members associated with it
ServiceNow Implementation of Design and Assign Enhancement
Design and assign enhancement to execute the modification of a physical or logical connection without the revision capability but using the change model instead.
- Navigate to the Telecom Network Inventory Workspace
- From lists navigate to > Changes > All and select NEW
- There is a new out of the box template “Design & Assign” available and can now be selected:
- Modify Logical Connection Endpoints
- Modify Physical Connection Endpoints
- For the purposes of this example – Modify Physical Connection Endpoints will be selected.
- Select SAVE when the template appears
- The following form should be completed.
- If the name of the Physical Connection to be modified is known, it can be directly inputed into the form. Otherwise the following will need to be completed in the form (which can be selected from a drop down menu):
- A end Site: DA Test-1
- A Equipment: DAT1/ASR 9006/0
- A end Interface: Ge10/1 (Rx)
- Z end Site: DA Test -2
- Z Equipment: DAT2/ASR 9006/0
- Z end Interface: Ge10/1 (Tx)
- Physical Connection: XXXX/XXXX/Fiber Link/0
- Click on “Create Revision”
- By clicking on “Create Revision”, all changes will be made to a copy of the CI or revision CI.
- If “Create Revision” is not selected then all changes will be made directly on the physical connection of the existing CI to the port we will select.
- Click on Submit
- A Change request will be opened
- Click on the Change Task tab and then click on the Task Number to go to the topology Design and Assign form.
- The change task indicates the physical connection revision request has been closed as seen below.
- When you click on the task the configuration item indicates that a new revision has been created by indicated a v1 following the name: XXXX/XXXX/Fiber Link0_V1
- Return to the previous task list and click on the other task: CTASK0010038, the following form will appear and will be autofilled as below.
- All the data on the form can also be manually updated. For example, if there is a port change then that can be modified on the form below.
- Once all changes are complete, click on the Submit button.
- Once the changes are made, the configuration item can be selected by clicking on the “i” indicated below.
- From the below form, it can be seen that the changes have been made and that the terminated end points are part of the Infrastructure relationships on the right hand side of the screen. The form below is auto populated
- Also the attributes: Port A and Port Z are updated.
- Port Z was manually changed to Ge8/1 (Tx) and saved.
- Returning to the Details tab and click on the Affected CIs tab, there is one configuration CIs. Click on the CI XXXX/XXXX/Fiber Link/0 to view the details of the affected CI.
- This is the original CI prior to the creation of the new version.
- The below form, the original version depicting the original Network Interfaces of Ge10/1(Tx)
- The new version XXX/XXX/Fiber Link/0_V1 has the new network interface of Ge8/1(Tx)
Additional Enhancement to the Logical Connection Model with Design and Assign
Logical Interfaces can be automatically created with the design and assign versioning enhancement.
- From lists navigate to > Changes > All and select NEW
- Click on the out of the box template “Create Logical Connection”
- Click on Save
- Click on the Change Task tab below and then click on the task number, CTASK0010043.
- The following form is completed as an example:
- Logical Connection Model: ENET Section
- Bandwidth AtoZ: 200Gbps
- Bandwidth ZtoA: 200Gbps
- A end Site: DA TEST-1
- Z end Site: DA TEST-2
- A end Equipment: DAT1/ASR 9006/0
- Z end Equipment: DAT2/ASR 9006/0
- Parent Port A: Ge9/1 (Rx)
- Parent Port Z: Ge9/1 (Tx)
- Click on Submit
- A logical connection is created together with the logical interfaces.
- To view the CI click on the “i” in the Configuration Item XXXX/XXXX/ENE Section/200Gbps/1
- The record is then viewed below. The logical connection is terminating on the new network infaces: Ge9/1 (Rx)/1 and Ge9/1 (Tx)/1
- To verify the individual records simply click on the interface below: Ge9/1 (Rx)/1
- Below is the individual record of Ge9/1 (Rx)/1. By scrolling to the configuration section, it will bw marked as Virtual as seen below.
Modification of Logical Connection End Points
- Returning to the logical connection below as an example: DS1/DS2/ENET SECTION/100Gbps/0 and the next step will be to modify connections
- From the original List View navigate to: Inventory > Logical Connection > DS1/DS2/ENET SECTION/100Gbps/0
- Click on the logical connection DS1/DS2/ENET SECTION/100Gbps/0
In order to change the logical connection end points from Design and Assign the following steps should be followed.
- From lists navigate to > Changes > All and select NEW
- Click on the out of the box template “Modify Logical Connection”
- The following form appears in order to identify the logical connection that needs to be modifies. Below is an example of a completed form based on the above example.
- If the name of the logical connection is known, the name can be searched for directly in the Logical Connection field below.
- Otherwise the example can be completed as follows
- A end Site: Demo Site1
- Z end Site: Demo Site 2
- This will provide additional filters for the Logical Connection as seen below. By clicking on logical connection, this will now only display the logical connection that has been created at the associated Sites mentioned.
- By selecting the logical connection above, the remainder of the fields will be autopulated as depicted below:
- If the logical connection modificaiton is part of an ongoing deployment (i.e. updating a network change that has already been implemented in production), then the Create Revision Box does not need to selected.
- If this logical connection modification is part of a planning session, then the Create Revision box should be selected
- Once you click on the “Create Revision” then the Submit should be selected.
- Once the Create Revision request is submitted, this will create two change task request
- Modify Logical Connection
- Logical Connection Revision
- The Logical Connection Revision task will be automatically generating a new revision
- Click on the refresh button
- The State of the task will be moved to Closed automatically once the new revision has been created.
- Click on the Closed Task: CTASK0010006
- Once in the newly closed task CTASK0010006, the newly created Configuration Item can be verified by clicking on the “i” indicated below:
- The newly created version of the logical connection is displayed below (DS1/DS2/ENET Section/100GPS/0_V1).
- At this point planned changes can now be inputed to the newly created version. In order to make these modifications, the change task Modify Logical Connection CTASK0010005 should be opened by clicking on the task itself as below.
- The newly created revision of the logical connection is auto populated in the form below.
- The Ports as seen below are greyed out and cannot be modified
- Rather the Parent Port A and Parent Port Z can be modified
- The modifications can be changed to for example:
- Parent Port A: Ge10/2 (Rx)
- Parent Port Z: Ge 10/2 (Tx)
- Once the changes are made, select Submit to implement the changes in the revision.
- Returning to the task CTASK0010005, the newly updated Configuration Item can be verified by clicking on the “i” indicated below:
- Within the infrastructure relationships, the updated terminated network interfaces are now displayed.
- The logical interface names were also updated as seen below.
- This can also be validated by navigating to the List View
- Inventory > Logical Connection >
- Filter for the circuit: DS1
- Two circuits will now appear:
- DS1/DS2/ENET SECTION/100Gbps/0
- DS1/DS2/ENET SECTION/100Gbps/0_V1
- The original circuit Port A and Port Z respectively are Ge10/1 (Rx)/1 and Ge10/1 (Tx)/1
- The original circuit Port A and Port Z respectively are Ge10/2 (Rx)/1 and Ge10/2 (Tx)/1
