Service Mapping ServiceNow | Briefs of ServiceNow Discovery

Article briefs about service mapping in ServiceNow and provides you brief understanding of ServiceNow service mapping, types of service mapping, service map and data reconciliation. Below you will find the video link from where you can get the brief understand that how we can do service mapping in ServiceNow instance.

servicenow service mapping,servicenow discovery, discovery in servicenow

ServiceNow CMDB is an ServiceNow ITSM application and one of most usable application in most of the organization. There are lots of concepts in CMDB which we all want to explore such as CI, CI Relationship, Service Mapping ServiceNow, Discovery etc. So lets see what all will be discussed in this article.

In this article we will discuss about below points:

  • What is service mapping in ServiceNow?
  • Types of service mapping discovery ?
  • What is the difference between the bottom up(horizontal) and top down service mapping (vertical)?
  • Where the application services stored which is discovered by service mapping ServiceNow ?
  • For what Service Maps of service mapping is used?
  • What is ServiceNow CMDB data identification and data reconciliation?
So, please fasten your seat belt and lets start :)

Service Mapping in ServiceNow:

Let’s consider in an organization there are some application services such as organization email system, organization Web application, Microsoft Exchange, Performance Monitoring Application, Microsoft SharePoint, Service Proxy, Data storage, Networking, Information Security, SAP application etc. and these application services are using some devices, software applications, servers, hardware, licenses etc. 
Now, the question is that what service mapping in CMDB will do in ServiceNow.

So, the answer is that service mapping in ServiceNow will discover all the Application Services available in an organization for e.g. organization email system, organization website, networking, data storage etc. and then through top-down mapping approach or method. Service mapping in servicenow will build a comprehensive map of all the devices, servers, network devices and configuration profile used in those application services. In other words, we can say that Service Mapping in ServiceNow maps dependencies, based on a connection between devices and applications. 


This comprehensive map will show CI’s and the relationship in the application service. All the application services which is discovered by service mapping cmdb will be stored in (cmdb_ci_service_discovered) table.


We can use Service Mapping in cmdb only when discovery in ServiceNow is activated and set up. To discover application services and devices, cmdb service mapping relies on discovery and mid server. Service mapping uses the results discovered and uses MID Servers to communicate with CIs in an organization. CMDB service mapping creates service maps and creates a CI in the cmdb representing a business service.

If you are using your personal developer instance, you can type service mapping on the left side filter navigator. Please find the below screenshot of the same:

servicenow service mapping,servicenow discovery, discovery in servicenow
service mapping servicenow Picture
Doing Service Mapping set up in servicenow is really a very responsible job. As there lots of other component which must be installed and set after the service mapping plugin is activated. 

Service mapping discovery is of two types:

  • Pattern Based Discovery
  • Traffic Based Discovery

Pattern are used to identify applications, properties of the application and connections to other application. For e.g. there is a pattern of web applications which is used to find web applications. CMDB service mapping uses patterns to discover and map ci's in cmdb. 

Those applications which cannot be identify using pattern, service mapping discovery uses traffic based discovery to identify those applications. 
To perform traffic based discovery service mapping in servicenow uses traffic based connection to collect network statistics. Traffic based discovery is used at initial stage and it creates more inclusive map. 

There are some questions which comes in mind when we talk about discovery in cmdb, service mapping in cmdb are as mentioned below:

What is the difference between the Discovery (Bottom-up/horizontal approach) and Service Mapping (top-down/Vertical approach)?

What I understand is that discovery focuses on Infrastructure and Service Mapping in cmdb focuses on Business Services. If we elaborate it, then we can say that discovery discovers all the infrastructure and application, but it does not relate anything to business services but on the other hand service mapping in cmdb discovers only those applications and infrastructure which directly supporting a business service and then map their relationships too, so it means that Service Mapping in servicenow is more precise than of discovery. 

Where the application services stored which is discovered by Service Mapping in servicenow  and for what ‘Service Maps’ are used? 

Application services discovered by Service Mapping cmdb is stored in (cmdb_ci_service_discovered) table. Service Mapping creates service map which is used for impact analysis in change management and incident management. 

What is servicenow cmdb data Identification and Data Reconciliation ?

Data coming from different sources can be of two types such as structured data or unstructured data. Structured data which can be easily identified and unstructured data which is unmanaged and difficult to identified. So, Data identification is a process which is used to identify the data and also perform data analysis whereas Data reconciliation is a verification process through which target data is compared with the source data. 

In ServiceNow CMDB ci can be created or updated through different sources such as manually, CMDB discovery, import sets, event management etc. So, ServiceNow CMDB data identification and data reconciliation help to maintain the integrity of the ServiceNow CMDB. 

We hope above information related to ServiceNow mapping in ServiceNow will help you to implement the required concept in ServiceNow. Please provide you feedback in below comment box and let us know if you need more information on ServiceNow service mapping or in any other concept. You can also refer our YouTube channel for ServiceNow concepts understanding.

6 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing this doc,we understand service mapping and discovery very well.
    Thank yoi

    ReplyDelete
  2. you really give a very good content on service now topic. Can you also please give me some insights regarding technical service offering . Is service mapping and technical service offering same ?

    ReplyDelete
  3. How communication is done between MID server and Discovery tool? Who initiate the process?
    please any one answer this question?

    ReplyDelete
  4. How communication is done between MID server and Discovery tool? Who initiate the process?
    please any one answer this question?

    ReplyDelete
  5. How do you define business services in terms of application mapping?

    ReplyDelete

Thankyou !!!!

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