Harnessing digital transformation in IT management with Virima and ServiceNow
Table of Contents
- Digital transformation in IT management: The Virima and ServiceNow® saga
- Experience the digital transformation with Virima-ServiceNow® partnership
IT management has evolved far beyond simple hardware and software inventory. The modern enterprise needs a robust, dynamic solution to keep up with the ongoing digital transformation. This is to ensure top-notch service provision and maintain a seamless user experience. In this arena, the partnership between Virima and ServiceNow® marks a significant stride towards efficient and effective IT management.
ServiceNow® is a leading ITSM provider with all the features you’ll need in IT management. The same goes for Virima. It offers a comprehensive suite of features to bring digital transformation to your IT management. This includes solutions to gain IT visibility such as Discovery and service mapping to CMDB and end-to-end IT asset management and ITSM. Though either of the platforms can provide everything you need for your IT management, the best choice is to use a mix of the strengths of both platforms.
In this blog post, we’ll explore how the best of ServiceNow and Virima can be integrated to get an enhanced IT management solution for your organization.
Digital transformation in IT management: The Virima and ServiceNow® saga
Virima Discovery and Service mapping for ServiceNow CMDB
In the realm of IT management, digital transformation is taking center stage. The key part of this digital transformation is effective IT visibility for every stage of IT service delivery– planning, organizing, and controlling.
In this sweet corner, Virima and ServiceNow® are leading the charge. A vital aspect of this story is the synergy between Virima Discovery and ServiceNow’s Configuration Management Database (CMDB).
ServiceNow CMDB at a glance
ServiceNow’s CMDB offers an all-encompassing, cloud-based system of record for your IT infrastructure and digital service-related data. This system is designed to enhance the diagnosis of service outages by aiding in root cause analysis. If the data is always accurate and up-to-date, it forms the backbone of asset management core functions such as SecOps, DevOps related activity. It aids in compliance improvement, among other essential IT processes.
For all the above use cases, the core functionality of the ServiceNow CMDB is to provide an integrated approach to consolidating, validating, and correlating Configuration Item (CI) data; All these lead to breaking down data silos leading to significant operational efficiency.
The challenge with the CMDB
However, building and maintaining a CMDB you can trust is a challenge. Particularly, if there’s no automation for discovering IT assets across cloud, edge, and data centers. Also, if there’s no way to automatically update the CMDB CI data for any changes made to CIs across functionalities.
To ease this challenge, ServiceNow® offers ITOM Discovery which needs separate licensing.
It provides real-time IT visibility of assets for virtualized and cloud environments. Whereas, the ServiceNow® Service Mapping that comes along with it, maps the relationship between your digital services and IT infrastructure.
But what if there’s a Discovery and Service Mapping solution that not only overcomes the challenge but turns this into an opportunity to make the CMDB a powerhouse?
Like a solution that brings enhanced automation to IT asset discovery. At the same time provides powerful visualization of CMDB data for a broad audience.
Entering Virima Discovery: Enhanced automation to IT asset discovery
Virima Discovery takes the IT visibility of your IT environment to the next level. It automatically discovers your IT assets, their attributes, and their relationships across cloud environments, edge, and data centers. This discovery happens for both logical CIs such as virtual machines, and containers as well as for physical CIs– databases, storage, and applications.
Moreover, Virima discovery has extensive discovery options. There are 140 plus extendable probes to choose from for agentless discovery. Whereas, installable agents are there for devices in data centers and edge. For asset discovery in the cloud, you can use API integration for popular cloud (Azure, AWS), hypervisor, storage, and monitoring solutions.
As for the enhanced automation, business rules can be applied to automate which Virima discovered assets would be moved to the ServiceNow CMDB. Or you can simply use the filterable list to view every asset and update and decide which to copy to the ServiceNow CMDB.
When a change is made to these assets, say someone spun up a new cloud instance or virtual server, it automatically updates the associated data. This is a game-changer because it helps maintain an accurate inventory which, in turn, makes it easy to make informed decisions that require accurate and up-to-date information on configuration items (CI). It could be while addressing system outages, cybersecurity instances, or while planning a change.
Read, a comprehensive guide to managing CI in ServiceNow CMDB
But what else makes Virima Discovery a valuable addon to ServiceNow CMDB?
When you integrate Virima Discovery with ServiceNow CMDB (the process is 100 percent codeless), you can be sure that no CI data is ever duplicated. This is done by understanding the asset-specific correlations.
Digital transformation in ITAM: How Virima discovery powered ServiceNow CMDB helps
The ServiceNow CMDB provides a wealth of accurate data about assets in an organization. So ServiceNow ITAM can use them to effectively monitor and manage these assets across their entire lifecycle. From asset procurement and deployment all the way through to retirement.
Acting as a caretaker, the ITAM would optimize their usage and allocation. It’ll keep licensing and costs and let the IT team know when it’s time to replace them. Think about CMDB like that one friend who knows every little detail about the town. Where everything is located, what connects where, and all the shortcuts.
Now, if you were tasked to look after the town (as an ITAM looking after all IT assets), wouldn’t having this friend around make your job a whole lot easier? Likewise, the accurate and up-to-date CMDB with the help of Virima discovery provides information about all assets, their configuration, how they’re connected, and their impact on IT services. This enriches the entire asset management process, making it more efficient and proactive.
Virima ViVIDTM service maps: Powerful dynamic visualization of CI relationship in CMDB
Virima ViVIDTM service maps turn the reliable ServiceNow CMDB data into actionable insights. These maps enhance the relationship visibility provided by the discovery tool. So you can see all the IT assets, their dependencies, and their relationships in an interactive and easy-to-understand format.
Such powerful dynamic visualization makes it super convenient for IT teams to understand how different CIs supporting a particular infrastructure or application relate to or depend on one another.
Adding Virima ViVIDTM service maps to ServiceNow CMDB enhances the understanding of how different services interact with each other. Like, the maps will tell you how the finance application relates to and depends on the HR application within an organization. This knowledge becomes priceless when trying to make configuration changes, diagnose outages, or assess the possible impacts of an upcoming change.
Thus the Virima Discovery and ViVIDTM service mapping integration to ServiceNow® help you build a CMDB that you can trust for IT management.
Read, the role of CMDB in IT management
Now let’s take a closer look at something that makes ServiceNow® and Virima partnership even better: Virima Discovery and Service Mapping for ServiceNow IT Service Management (ITSM).
Digital transformation in ServiceNow ITSM: How Virima discovery and service mapping enhances ITSM processes
ServiceNow ITSM aims to transform inefficient manual processes with automated ones. Here the objective is to elevate the service experience for end-users and IT staff alike. The desired results are also obvious–enhancing productivity, and lowering the operational costs.
To bring these results, the IT visibility provided by Virima Discovery and service mapping improves the efficiency of ITSM processes in ServiceNow® even further.
Improved incident management in ServiceNow ITSM
ServiceNow® focuses more on the automatic routing of incidents to the correct resolution group. It gives much emphasis on how various stakeholders can be brought together to investigate an issue and restore services swiftly.
Moreover, it brings an AI-powered root cause analysis that scans the incidents over time. Also, it tells which assignment group, incident priority level, or incident group is causing the inefficiency. For example, it can show that 881 of 1800 records that were initially classified as 5 are causing 2.4 times more than any other priority level.
ServiceNow ITSM’s incident management capabilities reach new levels of efficiency and clarity when combined with Virima’s discovery and service mapping. This enhancement can be attributed to the IT visibility brought in by both the ViVIDTM service maps and asset inventory creation by Virima Discovery.
The asset inventory helps IT teams in ServiceNow ITSM to track and manage incidents better. It does so by tracing them back to the particular asset or group of assets causing the issue.
Whereas, business service maps links of each problem-causing asset will help IT teams identify underlying asset components quickly. These assets may be servers, network devices, and databases. So IT teams understand not only what is affected, but also how it impacts the organization as a whole.
Highlighting all related elements of problem-causing assets enhances the effectiveness and speed of incident troubleshooting.
Optimized change management
CAB workbench in ServiceNow ITSM automates the change advisory board meetings that accelerate complex change management. The CAB workbench empowers change managers to see all the details of changes. These changes are the proposed blackout window, and maintenance window for each agenda item. Also, it includes schedule meetings according to their priorities.
Before anything else, it is crucial to comprehend the connection between an asset and other dependent services or applications. And that’s where Virima service maps integration to ServiceNow ITSM comes into play. It not only shows the dependencies but helps simulate the impact of the proposed change. Such a convenient change collision view aids IT teams in efficiently creating the agenda for the CAB. Especially to to review and approve.
Experience the digital transformation with Virima-ServiceNow® partnership
So it’s clear how Virima Discovery acts as the fuel for ServiceNow’s robust CMDB. It makes the CMDB a trusted source of information for various IT management tasks with automation. Virima’s ViVIDTM service maps provide a vivid depiction of CI relationships, simplifying the understanding of the IT ecosystem.
It’s evident that the integration of Virima Discovery with ServiceNow’s ITSM can propel incidents and change management to new heights. This amalgamation enables you to keep up with digital transformations. It yields significant improvements in IT management, including efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and business continuity.
Book a demo today to learn how the ServiceNow- Virima synergy can help your organization in terms of efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and overall business improvement in IT management.
