Service Bridge for Providers v2.x.x FAQService Bridge Frequently Asked Questions This FAQ has been updated for Service Bridge for Providers and Service Bridge for Consumer version 2.0.20, release in August 2024. What is new in Service Bridge? Please find the release notes for the August '24 release HERE Service Bridge Security What type of Authentication is used for Service Bridge? Service Bridge uses REST communication usings OAuth 2 token based authentication for both RPS and the Remote Choice API. During the Service Bridge customer enrollment process, Service Bridge automatically creates OAuth 2 authentication profiles on both instances, leveraging the native functionality of the ServiceNow platform. This is then used for both the RPS connection and Remote Choice API.Service Bridge uses the platform capabilities of Service Connection & credential aliases, allowing customers to change the configuration if they wish to do so. There are several different Credential types ServiceNow supports OOB. This change would be to be coordinated between both the provider and the consumer. How is traffic routed between ServiceNow commercial cloud instances? For commercial ServiceNow instances, network communication between ServiceNow cloud instances is contained within the ServiceNow ecosystem. This means instance to instance network traffic is not routed over the public internet, but is routed over an internal networking (same datacenter) and ServiceNow owned tunnels/circuits (different datacenters). Are any Service Accounts used for Service Bridge? A Service Account is automatically created as part of the Service Bridge customer enrollment, an account on each instance. The Service Accounts are not used for any authentication, instead being used in RPS for the “Run as” and Inbound API user” settings. These accounts are set as Web Service only user account and complex 1 way passwords are automatically generated so no human sees the password. They are created with the 2 RPS required roles (ih_sync_inbound_api and ih_sync_run_as) and the sn_transport_admin role (includes ih_process_sync_api, ih_process_sync_run_as, snc_internal) required to write to the sn_transport_queue table. What are the APIs that are used? Service Bridge uses Integration Hub Remote Process Sync (RPS) for most communication. RPS docs - https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/vancouver-integrate-applications/page/administer/integrationhub/concept/integrationhub-remote-process-sync.html#d51702e141RPS Scripted REST API - Process Sync Service Bridge also uses a Scripted Web API for Remote Choice, a feature of the Remote Catalog capability. Remote Choice Scripted REST API – Remote Choice These APIs are for internal application use and are not designed to be outside of RPS and Service Bridge respectively. There are not public API documents available for them but they can be viewed with the REST API explorer. What security features are available for these APIs? ServiceNow provides a wide range of security capabilities to secure all of its commercial cloud customers. You can find a review of these capabilities in the below document. https://www.servicenow.com/content/dam/servicenow-assets/public/en-us/doc-type/resource-center/ebook/ebk-how-servicenow-delivers-safe-and-secure-cloud-services.pdf In addition to ServiceNow clouds security, standard platform API security features can be configured and applied at the individual instance level. IP Access ControlsGlobal Blocking Policy for APIsAdaptive AuthenticationZero Trust AccessREST Access PoliciesREST API Auth ScopeEnforce Strict API SecurityInbound REST API LimitingMonitor Rate Limit TelemetryServiceNow Security Center What ServiceNow roles and permissions are required to configure new Service Bridge integrations? Please refer to the ServiceNow Doc site page HERE for the listing of the personas and associated roles. Domain Separation Service Bridge has basic domain separation capabilities, as defined by domain separation compatibility definitions. The data received through Service Bridge is tagged with the Account/Company associated with the Service Bridge connection. This results in the OOTB domain separation logic placing these records in the correct domain. Service Bridge does not support configuration at an individual domain level, but Service Bridge configurations can be entitled at an individual Account/Company level. This allows for a provider to create unique configurations on a per Account/Company level if required. Licensing Service Bridge is a part of the several Industry Service Management products, and there are no supplementary fees for providers associated with its use. All components (such as Remote Process Sync) are included, for Service Bridge specific use, and there are no additional licensing or transaction based costs. The Customer/Consumer side instance of the Service Bridge connection will not incur any fees for the utilization of Service Bridge. They can use any base Service Now license (ie. ITSM, CSM, HRSD…) to connect as a Service Bridge consumer. How is ServiceBridge different than the "eBonding Spoke" and "Integration Hub Remote Process Sync" ? Service Bridge represents the next phase in the evolution of eBonding within the Technology Provider industry. Unlike custom eBonding, Service Bridge offers a pre-packaged integration, task synchronization, and transformation application. This significantly reduces the time and effort required for configuring connections between two or more existing ServiceNow instances while increasing scalability and repeatability.The forward-looking roadmap of Service Bridge sets it further apart from custom eBonding, through the planned inclusion of GenAI capabilities, particularly in labor-intensive areas like Transform map creation. What task types are supported with Service Bridge? Remote Task supports connecting any record type that is an extension of task. A few examples: IncidentCaseCase TaskProject TaskProblem Custom tables are supported as well, if they are extended from the Task table. Does Service Bridge work with other systems besides ServiceNow? Service Bridge is a purpose-built application designed and mapped out to facilitate scalable and repeatable integrations between two or more ServiceNow instances. While Service Bridge specializes in these types of integrations, it's worth noting that the broader ServiceNow platform also offers integration capabilities with non-ServiceNow systems. A Common practice for providers is to setup a custom API for 3rd party systems on the same instance so that agents work the same way with native or 3rd party. GCC and On Premise support Does Service Bridge support GCC (ie. Protected/FedRamp) instances? Yes, Service Bridge supports protected instances that support RPS. Please check with your account team to verify for your specific instance. Does Service Bridge support self-hosted/on-premise instances? Yes, self-hosted and on-premise instances are now supported by Service Bridge. Version compatibility Do both instances (provider/consumer) need to be at the same major platform release version? No, Service Bridge supports the N-2 release support standards for ServiceNow. Both the provider and consumer instances can run at any of these major release versions.In the August '24 release of Service Bridge, Providers and Consumers can now run on different versions of Service Bridge starting with Service Bridge for Providers/Consumers 2.x and beyond. Note that when upgrading the Service Bridge app, review the installation instructions to check if any global scripts need to be updated. The store app only updates objects (ie. Scripts) in their specific application scopes, and any global components will need to be updated separately. If any of these global elements have not been updated, there will be a notification displayed whenever any Service Bridge configuration form is read. https://support.servicenow.com/nav_to.do?uri=%2Fkb%3Fid%3Dkb_article_view%26sysparm_article%3DKB1225292 Can Service Bridge (Legacy) and Service Bridge for Providers both be installed on the same instance? Yes, the current and legacy plugins have been developed as completely separate applications so that they can be installed concurrently on the same instance. It was designed in this way so a provider using Service Bridge (Legacy) can migrate connected customers to Service Bridge for Providers. Once all customers have been migrated off of Service Bridge (Legacy) the provider should then remove the Service Bridge (Legacy) plugins. Can the Service Bridge for Providers plugin connect to Service Bridge (Legacy) customer, or can a Service Bridge (Legacy) provider plugin connect to Service Bridge for Consumers customers? No, Service Bridge for Providers/Consumers and Service Bridge (Legacy) are not compatible. Performance Questions There are not any extra performance considerations for Service Bridge.Service Bridge leverages native REST based communication, so if a customer is leveraging any performance strategy for REST communication, this will apply to Service Bridge. Cloning Please refer to the Service Bridge docs site for the most up to date cloning details. Please find the link for the Service Bridge Xanadu release cloning guidance HEREAt a high level, the configuration elements of Service Bridge, such as Remote Task Definitions, Remote Catalog Items, Transforms…… will not clone across instances and Connections (RPS connection, credentials....) will be preserved on the instance that is cloned to. Instance Promotion Best Practices 1. Please refer to the KB article on the support site HERE Common technical questions Are there any performance testing statistics for Service Bridge? From testing, we have seen on average ~400 transactions per minute, per connection. Remote Task processing at ~350 and Provider Tasks at ~700, per minute. To send the data, Service Bridge will utilize a single worker for up to 15 minutes, and during that period, records are sent one at a time in a round-robin approach from each connection. In addition QOS is used within each connection. Different content like Service Bridge configuration, Remote Catalog Items, and Service Bridge tasks themselves have different priorities to ensure optimal operations. Work Notes sync By default comments and attachments are synced between connected tasks. Work Notes were designed to be internal and are not synced between tasks. However, Work Notes entered directly on a remote task (the child record) will sync between instances. The option to sync Work Notes is planned for the future. Does Service Bridge have a central "Transaction Console" for viewing end-to-end transaction lifecycle, transaction logs, troubleshooting, and performance metrics? Currently the monitoring and troubleshooting is performed with the standard Remote Process Sync methods - https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/tokyo-application-development/page/administer/integrationhub/reference/getting-started-with-remote-process-sync.html#d100078e1598A Service Bridge specific diagnostics and troubleshooting dashboard is on our short term roadmap. Does Service Bridge maintain transactional integrity by ensuring messages are processed in the exact order in which they occur? Any single object will have its updates in the same order they arrived. Service Bridge uses QOS to shape different types of traffic. E.g. configuration changes are P1, transactional changes are P2 and data replication like the up coming foundation data sync are P3 Can Service Bridge operate both synchronously and asynchronously? Service Bridge operates asynchronously. Data is processed in a round robin across all connections. Each connection is ordered by QOS priority and first-in logic. This means available bandwidth will be shared equally between connections and for each connection they will receive all config changes followed by transactional data, and then foundational data. What transport types are supported with Service Bridge v2? Service Bridge only uses Integration Hub RPS (and direct REST calls for the Remote Choice feature). It is not possible to use other transport mechanisms for Service Bridge. Does Service Bridge have any restrictions integrating two ServiceNow instances that are not in the same ServiceNow data center? No, there are no geographic data center restrictions. Does Service Bridge have any restrictions integrating two ServiceNow instances that are not in the same ServiceNow data center? There is a Connect/Disconnect button available with Remote Task to “break” the bond between tasks across instances. A scenario where this could be used is if a Remote Task was accidentally assigned to a provider over Service Bridge, a provider could notify the customer of the mistake, then disconnect the tasks, and close out the task on their instance. What scope(s) should be used when connecting to Service Bridge customers? The provider side configuration can be performed in any scope. When Service Bridge publishes the configuration content to the customer, it will be created in the global scope. What are the different attachment file types supported in Service Bridge? Service Bridge does not apply any logic at a file type level. Service Bridge relies on the platform features around file restrictions and will simply replicate files attached to relevant tasks between the instances, if this feature is enabled. As a platform, ServiceNow has mechanisms to restrict what files can be attached to a record, including file types and size.Blacklist file types - https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/vancouver-platform-security/page/administer/security/reference/specify-blacklisted-file-types.html Can a Service Bridge consumer instance connect to multiple Service Bridge provider instances? Each instance can be a Service Bridge Provider to multiple Consumers and a Service Bridge Consumer of other Providers.In this case, both applications (Service Bridge for Providers and Service Bridge for Consumers) must be installed and stay on the same release version. E.g. Both 2.1.x or both 2.2.x.