The future of ITOM is here. ServiceNow Xanadu has arrived, bringing a wave of enhancements designed to streamline workflows, optimise cloud adoption, and boost IT health. Let’s dive in and explore the key features that make this release a must-have for any organisation seeking to elevate its IT operations.
ITOM Visibility: See your IT Infrastructure like never before
If you’re looking for a clearer, more connected picture of your IT infrastructure, ServiceNow’s Xanadu release is perfect for you. It’s packed with upgrades to ITOM Visibility that will help you discover, map, and manage your IT assets like a pro. Let’s dive deep into those new features.
Discovery Admin Workspace: The New Control Center
If you’re a ServiceNow user responsible for managing your IT infrastructure, you know that the Discovery tool is a lifeline. But let’s be honest, managing discovery schedules, debugging errors and manipulating data can be a real headache. Good news! The Xanadu new release just made our lives easier with the all-new Discovery Administrator Workspace.
The Discovery Admin workspace is more than just a revolution. It’s a game-changer that allows Discovery administrators to simplify day-to-day tasks, collaborate seamlessly with other teams and continuously optimise discovery performance.
Here’s a quick rundown of the highlights:
- Modernised interface: The Discovery Admin Workspace offers a fresh, intuitive design that consolidates critical information and functionalities into a single, accessible location. Key performance indicators (KPIs), trends, and actions are readily available, simplifying daily administration.
- Quick Discovery for multiple IPs: The Quick Discovery feature now supports multiple IP addresses, allowing administrators to initiate on-demand discovery for a range of devices with ease.
- Effortless schedule management: The revised schedules page provides a clear overview of all discovery schedules by location, enabling administrators to track discovery attempts and spot issues early on to manage schedules more effectively.
- Error troubleshooting made easy: The new Diagnostics error control pane offers machine learning (ML)-powered clustering of discovery errors, simplifying troubleshooting and issue resolution so you can fix them faster.
- Collaboration is key: Need help from other teams? Create and assign tasks related to discovery errors directly within the Discovery case management feature for seamless collaboration.
- Data at your fingertips: Shazzam Insights, along with other dashboards like Virtual Machine Explorer and Kubernetes Explorer, provide valuable insights into active IP addresses, port connections, and other network details.
- Continuous improvement: The Tuning Advisor gives you personalised tips to fine-tune your discovery and MID server settings to recommend improvements, enhancing discovery accuracy and efficiency for optimal performance.
- Never stop learning: Access a wealth of knowledge base articles and videos right within the workspace.
More visibility, less hassle
ServiceNow Xanadu also brings these powerful ITOM Visibility features:
- CMDB boost
- Enrich your CMDB with loads of new CIs using the ITOM Content Service.
- Enhanced security
- Enable OAuth2.0 authorisation for Informer connections.
- Enhanced MID Server
- 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.
- MID Server support for Azure Key vault
- Starting from the Xanadu release no more need to use credentials saved on instance
- Azure Key Vault can be utilised. It’s important to mention that an External Credential Storage and Management application is required.
- When setting up access to the Azure Key Vault, the MID Server is either within the Azure environment or it is on an external virtual machine.
- Kubernetes control
- Upgrade and configure Cloud Native Operations Informer without relying on your Kubernetes admin.
- Extended discovery
- Discover Dell EMC storage and Azure SQL license information with Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns.
- Top-down mapping using Service Mapping with Agent Client Collector
- Run top-down discovery with Service Mapping and Agent Client Collector integration.
- Agent Client Collector enables the discovery and mapping of application services without requiring you to set up credentials for the MID Server.
- Using Agent Client Collector, you can deploy both top-down and machine learning-based Service Mapping and benefit from a simplified approach to mapping application services
- Effortless Service Mapping
- Create application services using CMDB-based mapping.
- Use Automated Service Suggestions and CMDB data, instead of the MID Server, to create new application services.
- Automated Service Suggestions uses machine-learning data to help you map a new application service or to add to an existing service in minutes
Moreover, the native sidebar chat feature streamlines communication within the Security Operations Center (SOC), promoting better coordination and a seamless information-sharing process during shift changes.
ITOM Cloud Accelerate: Accelerating your cloud journey
ServiceNow’s Xanadu release isn’t just about incremental improvements – it’s about empowering organisations to embrace the cloud with confidence and agility. The ITOM Cloud Accelerate application has received significant enhancements designed to streamline cloud adoption and management.
Key enhancements in ITOM Cloud Accelerate:
- Expanded Google Cloud Platform (GCP) Support: Now, leverage out-of-the-box catalogue items for GCP, enabling you to provision and manage GCP resources seamlessly through ServiceNow.
- Enhanced Terraform Integration: The Terraform app and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Discovery now support a multiple repositories structure, providing greater flexibility and control over your cloud infrastructure automation.
- Simplified Cloud Services Catalog interface: The Cloud Services Catalog UI has been revamped to provide easier access and management of cloud resources and offerings.
ITOM Health: Your IT health just got a power-up
With enhanced monitoring, security, and incident response capabilities, you can say goodbye to IT downtime and hello to a healthier, more resilient IT environment. Let’s dive into the exciting enhancements to the ITOM Health suite.
Agent Client Collector (ACC): Your eyes and ears in the IT world
Think of the Agent Client Collector as your trusted ally, keeping a watchful eye on your IT infrastructure. With the ServiceNow Xanadu release, ACC gets even smarter:
- Configure on the fly: No more digging through the acc.yml configuration file. Adjust agent log levels right from the ServiceNow instance.
- Security first: Add a self-signed certificate for secure agent connections. Because data protection matters.
- Expanded monitoring: New Linux and Windows checks mean you’ll catch issues before they become headaches.
Health Log Analytics (HLA): The brain behind the brawn
HLA is the brains of the operation, it helps you predict IT issues before they impact users by ingesting, analysing, and correlating machine-generated log data in real-time. With the Xanadu release, it’s getting a major upgrade:
- Security and stability: New security fixes, data input enhancements like Filebeat, Elasticsearch, and Microsoft Azure Event Hubs, and Java JDK 17 support make HLA more robust and reliable than ever.
Service Reliability Management (SRM): The Incident Response Dream Team
SRM is the new kid on the block, and it’s ready to revolutionise how you handle incidents.
- Collaboration Central: Respond, collaborate, track, and even self-remediate incidents all in one place.
- Empowerment: Give your teams the tools they need to resolve alerts and incidents quickly and efficiently.
CMDB features overview can be found in this article.
Conclusion
From the streamlined Discovery Admin Workspace to the expanded cloud support and robust health monitoring capabilities, the ServiceNow Xanadu release is definitely a game-changer for IT Operations Management. Thanks to the wide suite of enhancements, you can optimise your IT infrastructure, accelerate cloud adoption, and proactively address potential issues, ultimately driving efficiency and delivering exceptional user experiences.
If you need more information about the ServiceNow Xanadu release or anything else regarding the Now platform, do not hesitate to contact our team.
