Analytics and Reporting for Cloud Resources

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated August 1, 2024
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Analytics and Reporting for Cloud Resources

    The Analytics and Reporting for Cloud Resources solution in the ServiceNow AI Platform provides a prepackaged Performance Analytics Content Pack that offers an aggregated view of all cloud resources across multiple providers. It integrates with Discovery and Cloud Provisioning and Governance to deliver detailed analytics and reporting capabilities for cloud environments.

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    Key Features

    • Cloud Provider Support: Supports Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, VMware vCenter, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) starting from version 1.2.1.
    • Dashboard and Filtering: Displays aggregated cloud resource counts and latest Cloud Discovery error logs, with filters by service account, datacenter, or Azure resource group.
    • Custom Reporting: Provides analytics tables and views associating tags with resources to enable custom dashboards and reports. GCP-specific widgets can be created using appropriate tables or viewed via the Cloud Discovery Workspace application.
    • Scheduled Data Updates: Separate scheduled jobs run every 30 minutes per cloud provider to update analytics tables with the latest Configuration Item (CI) data, ensuring dashboards reflect current information.
    • Job Monitoring: Job status, including provider type, status, start/end time, and duration, is tracked in the Cloud Dashboard Job Status table.
    • Timeout Configuration: Scheduled jobs have a maximum runtime of 360 minutes, configurable via a system property. Jobs exceeding this timeout are canceled to maintain system performance.

    Required Roles

    • ServiceNow AI Platform Administrator (admin): Responsible for installation, activation, and configuration changes including system properties.
    • Performance Analytics Administrator (paadmin): Manages indicators, breakdowns, widgets, dashboards, data collection setup, and dashboard sharing.
    • Cloud Dashboard User (sndiscocd.user): Has read-only access to cloud resource analytics tables and dashboards, can view cloud resource widgets.
    • Cloud Dashboard Administrator (sndiscocd.admin): Can view, add, or edit dashboard widgets and reports with read-only access to analytics tables. This role includes the user role, and discoveryadmin includes this role by default.

    Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    This solution enables ServiceNow customers to gain comprehensive visibility into their cloud resource inventory through aggregated analytics and customizable dashboards. It supports multi-cloud environments, updates data frequently for real-time insights, and offers role-based access controls to ensure appropriate governance. Customers can efficiently monitor cloud resource health, usage, and errors, improving cloud management and decision-making.

    Platform Analytics Solutions contain prepackaged Performance Analytics and Reporting content for use with other ServiceNow AI Platform products.

    Performance Analytics Content Pack for Cloud Resources overview

    The Performance Analytics Content Pack for Cloud Resources shows the aggregated view of all your Cloud Resources. You can filter on specific information for more details. There are also analytics tables and views that associate tags with resources so that you can build your own custom dashboards and reports.

    The Performance Analytics Content Pack for Cloud Resources works with Discovery and Cloud Provisioning and Governance and it supports the following cloud providers:
    • Amazon Web Services
    • Microsoft Azure public clouds
    • VMware vCenter
    • Google Cloud Platform (GCP) (Supported with Performance Analytics Content Pack for Cloud Resources version 1.2.1 and higher).

    The aggregate count of each cloud resource and the latest Cloud Discovery error logs are displayed on the dashboard. You can filter the cloud resources by the service account, datacenter, or resource group (only for Microsoft Azure) under a specific provider and view the resource count and the resources.

    The base-system Performance Analytics Content Pack for Cloud Resources dashboard doesn’t contain any widget for the GCP resources. You can create the reports and widgets by consuming data from the appropriate tables. For more information on the tables that contain the GCP resources data, see Cloud Resources dashboard. Alternatively, you can install the Cloud Discovery Workspace application to view the GCP reports and widgets. For more information, see Cloud Discovery Workspace.

    For each cloud provider, a separate scheduled job is triggered every 30 minutes. The latest CI data is updated in the cloud resource analytic tables, which allows the dashboard to be more realistic and have the updated count. The information about each scheduled job is available in the Cloud Dashboard Job Status [sn_disco_cd_cloud_dashboard_job_status] table. The job details including the provider type, status, start time, end time, and duration are stored in this table.

    The reports for the cloud dashboard widgets are generated from the cloud resource analytical tables. The analytical tables are populated through the scheduled job. The scheduled job queries the new database views, and inserts and updates the records into the analytical tables.

    The scheduled job can run for a maximum of 360 minutes. The maximum job timeout value is set using the system property (sn_disco_cd.scheduled_job_time_out_in_mins). If the scheduled job exceeds 360 minutes, or the time set in this property, then the job is canceled.

    Required roles

    The following roles and tasks are associated with this solution:
    • ServiceNow AI Platform administrator (admin): Install and activate this Analytics and Reporting Solution and can make any necessary changes to system properties.
    • Performance Analytics administrator (pa_admin): Review the indicators, breakdowns, widgets, and dashboards. Set up and start data collection and share the dashboards with appropriate stakeholders.
    • Cloud Dashboard user (sn_disco_cd.user): Crew the cloud resource widgets in the Cloud Dashboard and has read-only access on the Cloud Resource analytics tables and the dashboard reports.
    • Cloud Dashboard administrator (sn_disco_cd.admin): View, add, or edit the dashboard widgets and reports and has read-only access on the Cloud Resource analytics tables. By default (sn_disco_cd.admin) contains the (sn_disco_cd.user) role and (discovery_admin) contains the (sn_disco_cd.admin) role.