Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns plugin should be updated

Product Success Playbook

A step-by-step guide for fixing discovery and service mapping pattern upgrade issues

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

Play 3: Upgrade the plugin

Play 4: Upgrade the customization for pattern

Data Governance

References

Summary

Goal of this Playbook

Understand the issue of not updating Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns plugin and helps to identify and fix plugin upgrade issues.

Details about this playbook

Author

Thiyagarajan

Reviewer

Emir Eminovic

Date

09/10/2023

Addresses HSD #

HSD0010407

Applicable ServiceNow Releases

All Releases

Prerequisites

Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns plugin

Time Required

Approximately 2 to 16 hours (depending on your environment)

Audience

Discovery Administrator ServiceNow Administrator Configuration Management Team

Problem Overview

ServiceNow Discovery & Service Mapping uses patterns as the main method for collecting data about devices and application services, New versions of patterns are released in ServiceNow usually on a monthly basis. Not upgrading the patterns results in missing the opportunity to use the latest features and fixes provided in the releases.

Executive Summary

How this playbook can help you achieve business goals

An accurate and complete CMDB is the foundation for an effective Service Management process. Having up to date Discovery & Service Mapping patterns helps in improving the CMDB completeness and accuracy

How this playbook is structured

This playbook has 5 plays,

Play 1 (a review data play) checks the versions of the plugin. Play 2 (an analyze play) analyzes the plugin history for the fixes, new patterns and customization pattern Play 3 (a fix play1) upgrade to the latest version. Play 4 (a fix play2) upgrade customized pattern. Play 5 Data governance

Problem Analysis

Upstream Causes

Upstream Causes Regular upgrade of Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns plugin is not practiced, Upgrades are done only during family release, for ease in testing/release process Too many customizations on Patterns results in ignored updates Downstream Consequences

Data Consequence

CMDB is not populated effectively due to upgrade issues. So, this may lead to stale or missing data. This may affect data including, CMDB Events binding Missing entire Classes of CI data Operation Consequence

Operational teams may face issue in troubleshooting due to missing or stale data . Due to impact on automated remediations uses CMDB data may not work resulting operational teams spending manual effort .

App Consequence

SecOps applications can fail to identify risks in a timely manner. ITOM Visibility (Discovery, Service Mapping) may fail resulting in stale CMDB Integration Hub activities and flows may fail.

Impact on Your Business Not upgrading Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns could impact your business outcomes depending on which ServiceNow applications are running. Some examples follow.

Lower MTTR Data Validation Data Completeness Incident Reduction Service Awareness Data Accuracy Integrity of Relationships Increase Operational Visibility Process Alignment Lifecycle Management Audit/Compliance System Integrity Data Governance Process Gaps Service Level Awareness Data Integration Model Management Process Automation Service Awareness Data Accuracy Integrity of Relationships Better User Experience Platform Awareness Model Management

Engagement Questions:

Consider the answers to these questions:

Does your ServiceNow governance process contain process for upgrading plugins? Do you have a separate team for ITOM who manages plugin upgrades?

Remediation Plays

Summary

The table below lists and summarizes each of the remediation plays in the playbook. Details will be included later.

Play Name

Review your data

What this play is about

This will list all the available versions for the plugin

Required tasks

Shows the latest plugin versions

Analyze Play

What this play is about

This play will give knowledge about release notes of plugin version history

Required tasks

Go through the document for the version information.

Fix Play 1

What this play is about

This play helps in upgrading the plugin version

Required tasks

Follow the steps provided in the play

Fix Play 2

What this play is about

Fix play for pattern customization

Required tasks

Regularly follow the steps provided in the play

Data Governance

What this play is about

This play will help to monitor & manage plugin upgradation

Required tasks

Regularly follow the steps provided in the play

Play 1 - Review your data.

What this Play is about

This play will help to list the latest versions of plugin

Required tasks:

Navigate to System Definition > plugins.

Plugins page search for “discovery and service mapping patterns”.

The plugin will be listed with current version that you have installed.

Click the dropdown near to “Install” button to see the list of versions.

Note: If plugin is not there in the search lists, then go to the below given link for the plugin subscription and upgrades

Reference link: Upgrade the Store Release Application Plugins

Play 2 - Analyze

What this Play is about

This play helps to understand release notes of plugin version history.

Required tasks

1. Click on the ” Release notes" link which helps to understand the release versions of Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns plugin.

2. There will be a possibility where customization can be done for the pattern in the customer environment. While upgrading the plugin it should be taken care.

3.Fix play2 will give the step-by-step guide for the customization pattern version changes.

Play 3 – Upgrading the plugin

What this Play is about

This play helps in upgrading to the latest version of plugin.

Repeat play1 for getting plugin Select the appropriate version and click on the install button. Confirmation Pop up will be open with appropriate message for application installation which has cancel and install button.

Click on the Install button. Installing progressbar will be open which shows the percentage of the plugin is installed.

Once the installation is complete, the installed version is shown in the dropdown.

Play 4 – Fix play for pattern customization

What this Play is about

This play helps in changing the pattern version between customization and ServiceNow release

Goto the customized patterns and open. Click the Pattern tab.

Below the pattern text, versions are listed.

Click the latest link where source contains “System Upgrades”.

Update versions page will open. Click the “ Compare to current” related link.

Compare to current pattern page will be open and it gives the differences between current and the release version.

Compare page have three options 1. Revert to selected versions 2. Save merge 3. Skip the compare

If the released versions have customization changes, then click on Revert to selected versions button. If both the changes are required, then click on Save merge button. If release changes are not required, then skip the changes and keep the current version.

Data Governance

What this Play is about

This play provides an approach for monitoring and managing the plugin version history.

Required tasks

Plugin maintenance governance process team to be set up for periodic maintenance plugin version Rerun Play 1,2,3 periodically to check the new version of plugin and to be installed appropriately. Analyze the version release notes and make decisions to install latest versions.

References

Release version of the Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns plugin

Here is the reference: Release Notes

KB article: Article

Congratulations

You have completed this Product Success Playbook .