ITOM Visibility release notes

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated August 1, 2024
  • 6 minutes to read
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    Summary of ITOM Visibility Release Notes - Xanadu Release

    The ServiceNow® ITOM Visibility application delivers a unified view of your entire IT network and the services it supports. The Xanadu release enhances ITOM Visibility with improved discovery, enriched CMDB integration, cloud native operations upgrades, and expanded platform support to help you better monitor and manage your IT infrastructure.

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    Key Features

    • Discovery Admin Workspace: Provides a unified workspace to configure Discovery, track progress, manage errors, and access diagnostics and insights to optimize discovery operations efficiently.
    • Expanded Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns: Supports discovery of new products such as Dell EMC storage, AWS China region services, Fortinet firewalls, Azure Marketplace products, and Oracle Java processes for licensing compliance.
    • Improved MID Server Capabilities: Includes features like Microsoft Azure Key Vault integration for secure credential management and log file compression to enhance discovery performance.
    • CMDB-Based Application Service Mapping: Enables creation of application services using CMDB data and Automated Service Suggestions without relying solely on MID Server.
    • Cloud Native Operations (CNO) for Visibility Updates: Allows upgrading Informer pods directly from the instance, supports multi-architecture docker images (arm64 and amd64), OAuth2.0 authorization, and dynamic extensibility configuration.
    • Service Fingerprints: Helps refine application service candidate selection by analyzing unique component details for better mapping accuracy.
    • Enhanced Pattern Extensions and Azure Change Processing: Includes improved discovery capabilities for Pure Storage FlashArray, Azure SQL license data, GCP resource inventory, and real-time Azure CMDB updates.
    • Top-Down Discovery Integration: Supports Service Mapping integration with Agent Client Collector for comprehensive discovery and service suggestions.
    • Role Updates: Service Mapping roles have been renamed to improve clarity and access control (e.g., servicemappingadmin replaces smadmin).

    Important Upgrade Information

    • To improve Service Mapping, install Service Mapping Plus version 1.13.0 and the App Service Extension app from the ServiceNow Store.
    • Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns are now available via the ServiceNow Store, requiring installation for full functionality.
    • The Discovery Dashboard is deprecated; use the Discovery Admin Workspace instead.
    • Upgrade Cloud Native Operations Informer to benefit from new features and support multi-architecture docker images.

    Activation and Related Applications

    • ITOM Visibility requires activation of the Discovery and Service Mapping plugins along with an ITOM Visibility subscription.
    • For full capabilities, install the latest ITOM Visibility apps from the ServiceNow Store.
    • Related ITOM products include ITOM Health (event and metric management), Agent Client Collector (service monitoring), ITOM Optimization (cloud resource automation), and ITOM/OT SU Licensing (license usage tracking).

    What This Enables You to Do

    With the Xanadu release, ServiceNow customers can expect a more streamlined and insightful discovery process, better integration of cloud and on-premises resources into the CMDB, enhanced security and performance in discovery operations, and expanded support for modern cloud-native environments. These improvements simplify managing complex IT infrastructures, improve service mapping accuracy, and provide actionable insights to optimize IT operations.

    The ServiceNow® ITOM Visibility application provides a unified, connected view of your entire IT network and the services that it supports. ITOM Visibility was enhanced and updated in the Xanadu release.

    ITOM Visibility highlights for the Xanadu release

    • Elevate the Discovery Admin experience with Discovery Admin Workspace. Benefit from a unified workspace for configuring Discovery, tracking progress, and managing errors, with diagnostic tools that provide insights into discovered data.
    • Enrich your CMDB with a larger number of configuration items using ITOM Content Service.
    • Create application services with CMDB based mapping.
    • Avoid dependence on your Kubernetes admin by upgrading Cloud Native Operations Informer pods and modifying Informer execution parameters directly from the instance.
    • Enjoy multi-architecture support for docker image in Cloud Native Operations for Visibility.

    See IT Operations Management for more information.

    Important:
    Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns is available in the ServiceNow Store. For details, see the "Activation information" section of these release notes.

    Important information for upgrading ITOM Visibility to Xanadu

    For an improved Service Mapping experience, install Service Mapping Plus version 1.13.0 from the ServiceNow® Store.

    Enhance your application service mapping by installing the App Service Extension app from the ServiceNow® Store.

    New in the Xanadu release

    Use Discovery Admin Workspace features to jumpstart discovery implementation.
    • View discovery trends and tasks and access relevant ITOM Visibility apps and information through Discovery Admin Workspace Home.
    • Gain insights into the performance of all your discoveries through the information in the Schedules tab.
    • Analyze discovery errors and troubleshoot them using information in the Diagnostics tab.
    • Access on-demand reports and optimize discovery operations using information in theInsights tab.
    Discover products with Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns
    Discover the following products through Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns:
    Oracle Java process discovery

    Discover Java processes to comply with Oracle licensing agreements- Use the ITOM Oracle GLAS plugin (1.8.4) November 2024 store version to track Java installations and usage.

    MID Server features for better discovery performance
    • Run other applications without storing any credentials on the instance with the Microsoft Azure Key vault.
    • MID Server supports log file compression. The new log file handler settings are available as MID Server properties on the instance. The compression mode isn't enabled out of the box.
    Use CMDB based mapping to create new application services
    Use Automated Service Suggestions and CMDB data instead of the MID Server, to create new application services.
    Use the latest CNO for Visibility features
    Starting in version 3.6.3, benefit from new features in Cloud Native Operations for Visibility.
    • Upgrade the CNO for Visibility Informer from the ServiceNow instance.
    • Control Informer execution parameters from the instance.
    • Store instance credentials in the Microsoft Azure Vault when Informer uses the Azure Kubernetes Engine (AKS)
    • Enable Informer to connect to the instance using OAuth2.0 authorization
    Enjoy multi-architecture support for docker image
    Starting in version 3.9.0 (Informer version 2.3.0), the docker image supports both arm64 and amd64 architectures. Upgrading from the previous image to the new one will not cause any disruptions. However, the new image requires more storage space in your image repository than the previous one.
    Change the Informer's extensibility settings from the instance
    Starting in version 3.9.0 (Informer version 2.3.0), update the Informer's extensibility configuration directly from the Instance using the Additional resources ConfigMap parameter. By providing a JSON map with keys such as resources, mappings, and mappings_oob, you can instruct Cloud Native Operations for Visibility to retrieve additional information. If one of these keys exists and the system finds a change, it patches the ConfigMap and restarts the Informer.
    View the OpenShift version in the Cluster version field on the Kubernetes Cluster CI
    Starting in version 3.9.0 (Informer version 2.3.0), see the OpenShift version and the Kubernetes Cluster version in one place. OpenShift operates on top of Kubernetes, so there's an OpenShift version and a Kubernetes Cluster version. By installing the Informer with the --set openShift=true flag, the system adds the OpenShift version number to the cluster_version field on the Kubernetes Cluster CI in addition to the Kubernetes Cluster version.
    Use Service Fingerprints to refine the selection of application service candidates
    Explore unique, classified components of application service candidates provided by Automated Service Suggestions. By supplying specific information such as the product name and description, gain deeper insights into the most suitable candidate to convert to an application service.

    Changed in this release

    Use the enhanced Shazzam probe to collect data
    View the extended data collected by the Shazzam probe in the Discovery Admin Workspace Insights tab.
    Revised Service Mapping roles
    Gain improved visibility of ML-powered candidates in Service Mapping with updated roles:
    • service_mapping_admin replaces sm_admin.
    • service_mapping_user replaces sm_user.
    Use the enhanced Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns for extended discovery
    Note the following new Pattern extensions and improvements:
    Scale up your Azure change processing
    Update your CMDB in real time with your Azure cloud resource changes. After upgrading to the enhanced November 2024 Patterns (1.21.0) version, run an Azure cloud discovery on all service accounts to ensure receiving all updates.
    Stay informed about Cloud Discovery patterns updates
    Download and use the Cloud Discovery patterns spreadsheet with the latest up-to-date information on Cloud Discovery patterns, including REST-API permissions.
    Run top-down discovery using Service Mapping integrated with Agent Client Collector

    Top-down Service Mapping and Automated Service Suggestions are supported with Agent Client Collector.

    Deprecations

    Starting with the Xanadu release, the Discovery Dashboard is no longer part of the Discovery plugin. Use Discovery Admin Workspace instead.

    Activation information

    ITOM Visibility is available with activation of the Discovery (com.snc.discovery) plugin and the Service Mapping (com.snc.service-mapping) plugin, which require an ITOM Visibility subscription. For details, see Request Discovery and Request Service Mapping. For full ITOM Visibility functionality, install the latest ITOM Visibility out-of-band applications from the ServiceNow Store. For cumulative release note information for all released apps, see the ServiceNow Store version history release notes.

    Related ITOM applications and features

    ITOM Health
    The ServiceNow® ITOM Health product includes the ServiceNow® Event Management and ServiceNow® Metric Intelligence applications, which help you track and maintain the health of services in your organization.

    Event Management gathers alerts from infrastructure events that both third-party monitoring tools and the ServiceNow® internal agent capture. Event Management uses IT-related information that ServiceNow® Discovery gathers so it can map alerts to configuration items. Based on the collected information, Event Management then provides dashboards that show a consolidated view of all service-impact events.

    The Agent Client Collector application enables you to do the following:
    • Monitor your service availability.
    • Examine the health and performance of your environment.
    • Ensure that your infrastructure and its applications are running properly.
    Agent Client Collector collects events and metrics. It runs in either a Windows or Linux environment.
    ITOM Optimization
    ITOM Optimization provides automation for the cloud workflows used to manage the cloud resources throughout their life cycle. It enables certified and enterprise-compliant cloud deployment, cost visibility, and other cloud management processes.
    ITOM Licensing
    ITOM SU Licensing has been rebranded as ITOM/OT SU Licensing. ITOM/OT SU Licensing calculates and displays the usage of ITOM subscriptions based on subscription units. It enables you to access a comprehensive overview of the total number of licenses allocated to applications and configuration items (CIs), while offering an advanced feature set that provides visibility into the specific CIs covered by your licenses. You can view the subscription breakdown for ITOM Health, ITOM Visibility, ITOM Optimization, and ITOM Cloud Accelerate. For more details, see View which CIs have an ITOM license.