How to de-duplicate software models

Product Success Playbook

A step-by-step guide to analyze and remediate Model data

Table of Contents

Summary

Goal of this Playbook

Audience

Problem Overview

Executive Summary

How this playbook can help you achieve business goals

How this playbook is structured

Problem Analysis

Upstream Causes

Downstream Consequences

Impact on Your Business

Engagement Questions

Remediation Plays

Summary

Play 1: Review your data

Play 2: Analyze the Duplicate Software Model records

Play 3: Enable autocreation of software models

Play 4: Analysis Play - Content Service

Play 5: Fix Play for removing duplicate

Data Governance

Summary

Goal of this Playbook

The goal of this playbook is to help you manage and resolve duplicate software models.

Details about this playbook

Author

Bibu Elias Punnachalil

Reviewer

Dave Aiken

Date

03/15/2023

Addresses HSD #

HSD0011011

Applicable ServiceNow Releases

All Releases

Applicable ServiceNow Plugins and Applications

Asset Management Plugin (Asset), which is a component of an ITSM subscription and the Software Asset Management Professional Application (SAM Pro), which requires an additional subscription.

Time Required

Varies, depending on the instance customization level.

Audience

Configuration Manager or Configuration Management team Asset Manager or Software Asset Manager or SAM Administrator

Problem Overview

A software model is a profile of the software you've purchased, including information about the publisher, version, and discovery map. When software models are duplicated within the cmdb_software_product_model table, it becomes difficult to track and manage accurate software license counts and utilization.

Executive Summary

How this playbook can help you achieve business goals

Unique software product models can help in your SAM objective to systematically track, evaluate, and manage software licenses, compliance, and optimization. You can reclaim unused software rights, purchase new software rights, and manage allocations for entitlements efficiently.

How this playbook is structured

This playbook guides you through five plays.

The first play (a review play) shows you how many duplicate Software Model records you need to remediate The second play (an analysis play) supports analysis of duplicate software models The third play (a fix play) supports enablement of automatic software model creation The fourth play (a fix play) supports opting in to the ServiceNow Content Service Program The fifth play (a fix play) helps to remove the duplicate models

Problem Analysis

Upstream Causes

Software models are being created manually Software models created automatically from PPN (Publisher Part Number) not matching existing manually created software model Create SaaS subscription so that software model gets created Custom discovery maps are created which results in duplicate software model getting created Not opted in for SAM Content Service, resulting in unique software installations not being shared with ServiceNow and these are later downloaded as duplicate A re-structure of software models from a publisher but was not updated A gap within the asset onboarding process that allows incorrect or incomplete records to be created Some devices do not respond to Discovery with valid or complete model information, resulting in incomplete or duplicate records

Downstream Consequences

Data Consequence

Entitlements are not matched correctly Multiple models of the same type linked to entitlement records, Operation Consequence

Operational team not able to allocate licenses due to entitlement not mapped to the model Ambiguity in license utilization reporting Unnecessary investigation time searching for the correct software based on the model. Additional time may be wasted developing custom reports or workarounds to compensate for duplication within the model table. Not able to license forecasting effectively App Consequence

Vendor catalog may not have accurate software model information Impact on Your Business

Financial Optimization

Duplicate model information will introduce increased costs due to incorrect license utilization Risk Compliance

Ambiguity of model data could introduce compliance issues due to over utilization of software licenses Increase Operational Visibility

Data can be wrongly selected based on duplicate or inadequate data severely impacting software asset visibility.

Engagement Questions:

Consider the answers to these questions:

Do you use SAM Content Service? Do you have a Model Management Process? Is there a governance team helping make informed decisions?

Remediation Plays

Summary

The table below lists and summarizes each of the remediation plays within the playbook. Ultimately the plays will help you identify and remove duplicated model records.

Play Name

Review your data

What this play is about

List the duplicate software models

Required tasks

Run the fix script provided

Analysis Play

What this play is about

Check if duplicate model is due to partial data in software model attributes

Required tasks

Perform the steps provided in the play

Fix Play – Enable auto creation of software model

What this play is about

Enabling auto creation of software models through system property

Required tasks

Follow the steps to update the system property

Fix Play – Opt in for SAM Content Service

What this play is about

Opt-in for SAM content service

Required tasks

Follow the steps to opt in for SAM content Service

Fix Play – Remove duplicate software model records

What this play is about

Remove duplicate software model records

Required tasks

Follow the steps to relocate reference records and then remove the duplicate

Data Governance

What this play is about

Includes guidelines and processes for preventing duplicates

Required tasks

Follow these guidelines and setup the governance process

Play 1 - Review your data

In this play you will review the number of duplicates within your Software Model tables.

Required tasks

Download and import the Duplicate Software Model Fix script

Run the Fix script

Upon successful completion, review the output from the query

Note the actual editions and counts will be different, but a sample of the output is below:

Play 2 - Analyze your Duplicate Software Model records

Check if duplicate is due to partial data in model. The display name on software model records are a concatenation of the publisher, product, version and edition. You may have models where the model name or the edition are blank which can create false positive duplication.

Required tasks

Navigate to Product Catalog à Software Models Filter to see if any of the fields publisher, product, version or edition is empty

Play 3 – Enable/Disable automatic creation of software models

What this Play is about

This play is to manage automatic software model creation. This feature is driven by two system properties:

Automatically create software models for all 'licensable' products ( com.snc.samp.automaticsmrcreation) Automatically create software models for all 'not licensable' products ( com.snc.samp.automaticsmcreation) Disable the automatic software model creation properties if you experience issues and need to maintain more control over the model creation process.

Required tasks

In the Navigator, navigate to sys_properties.list to list System Properties Search for the property with the name com.snc.samp.automaticsmrcreation Update the value to “false” Search for the property “ com.snc.samp.automaticsmcreation ” Update the value to “false”

Play 4 - Analysis Play - Content Service

What this Play is about

This play is for SAM customers. Opting in to the Content Service, enables the anonymous upload of non-normalized or partially normalized models found in your instance, to the ServiceNow Content Data Service (CDS) server for review by the ServiceNow ITAM Content team. This will help improve normalization accuracy within your instance over time.

Fully normalized models provide software discovery model details, product lifecycles, and PPN & discovery maps data useful to SAM and other business processes within your organization. Normalization data is found on the “Normalization” tab of both software and consumable model records.

Normalization itself will not deduplicate your model data. However, it will inform your decision-making process. If you have two model records that are for the same model but after normalization one of them isn’t fully normalized, you should consider keeping the fully normalized model. Normalization should be just one input into your decision to keep a model.

There are no steps needed to enable content download. The content download feature is enabled automatically during SAM plugin activation. However, you must choose to opt-in to the service to send ServiceNow data for models that aren’t fully normalized within your instance.

1. Opt-in to the Software Asset Content Service.

To opt in, go to the Software Asset--> Content Service Setup application on and check the "Yes" checkbox shown on the below graphic:

2. Once the checkbox is selected, you'll be presented with the types of data that can be anonymously uploaded to ServiceNow. Enable the sliders next to the data types you wish the ServiceNow SAM Content Team to evaluate for inclusion in the content library. With each choice you enable, you are improving the content library for your organization as well as other ServiceNow customers.

Play 5 - Fix Play duplicates models

What this Play is about

Once you have identified duplicates models, start by making sure you have the complete information populated into key data attributes on the software model’s “General” tab. This next list represents the basic information needed to fix model duplication. The list also represents data utilized by the normalization engine to match models to the downloaded content library.

Publisher Product Version Edition Software install condition

Required tasks

Review your software model records and make updates to the publisher, product, version, and edition attributes as needed to complete the records. When you save each record the Display name will update. This will help you to remove false positive duplicate records. Download and import the Relocate Model Data Fix script. Adjust the Fix script and tags. Run the Fix script to remove the duplicate model you identified in step 3. Upon successful completion, review the output from the query. Repeat as necessary to clean up additional duplicate models. Remove the models you’ve identified as incorrect.

Data Governance

What this Play is about

It is recommended that the SAM owner, in partnership with the CMDB Owner, Procurement stakeholder, and representatives from Risk Management should approve model additions to your ServiceNow instance. Having a review process will ensure no software is introduced that represents a security risk or is not from an approved vendor enters your corporate computing landscape. You should also consider review of proposed custom field additions to the model table. Lastly, you should regularly review your model records for duplications that should be remediated as well as identifying how they were created so you can set policy and process to prevent future creation of duplicate models.

Required tasks

Document an internal policy that outlines a model approval process. Document an internal policy to prevent the creation of Software Model attributes without approval from a qualified person or team.

Institute a review process that watches for new models coming into the system through the different import/discovery processes instead of the process defined in your model management policy.

Create a report that shows any new asset software models created after the last clean-up was performed. Review periodically with Stakeholders.

Regularly review Software Asset Management release notes for announcement of new attributes and processes

Congratulations

You have completed this Product Success Playbook.