topic ServiceNow integration for problems and automated maintenance scheduling in Automations

ServiceNow integration for problems and automated maintenance scheduling

larry_roberts — Mon, 28 Jun 2021 13:00:04 GMT

I am looking at the integration options between Dynatrace and ServiceNow trying to better understand the workflow between the two. I have been told that the recommended integration to use is the ITOM. My understanding is that using this method allows ServiceNow to decide what is an incident and what is not VS ITSM which would send a problem to ServiceNow as an incident.

This is perfect for incident management. However, what is not clear to me is the change management aspect of things. At some point, I would like to have Dynatrace maintenance windows automatically scheduled based on change requests which have gone through their approval process in ServiceNow. Those change requests contain the CI's affected. For example a list of hosts which we would then want in a complete blackout in Dynatrace.

So 2 questions....

1. Is there any out of the box integration at this time for ServiceNow and Dynatrace when it comes to automatically scheduling maintenance windows in Dynatrace? If not, is this on the roadmap and what does that timeframe look like?

2. Being that we will want to send Dynatrace problems to ServiceNow to decide if something is truly an incident and based on what we want to eventually do with change management, is ITOM still the correct path?

Hoping some admins who have already been through this type of integration can point me in the right direction long with possible pros and cons.

Thanks all!

Re: ServiceNow integration for problems and automated maintenance scheduling

Mike_L — Mon, 09 Nov 2020 20:34:07 GMT

Hi,

I will leave #2 up to @Jai R.

As for #1, it is currently not possible and not planned for the near future. We do however already have experience with doing this as a custom engagement. If you want to pursue that feel free to send me an email.

Mike

Re: ServiceNow integration for problems and automated maintenance scheduling

jairam_ramaswam — Mon, 09 Nov 2020 21:42:04 GMT

Hi Larry, @Larry R On #1 as Mike mentioned there is nothing available currently.

For change request option we will definitely need to look at your ServiceNow instance

As it needs to have Standard Change request templates defined so we can re-use it as a pre-approved change request
Check how you define Blackout schedules and if it automatically prevents CIs from being scheduled when a Change request is open
This will only work if CMDB integration/Service Graph connector is already enabled
If CMDB integration is not enabled then we again will need to develop a custom plugin

On #2 ITOM would be the way to go for Incident Management, if you think determining thresholds in DT for raising problems is not suffice and you want to customize raising Incidents further in ServiceNow based on some Event rules/parameters. If not, then the Incident Management app will work when Problems get created in DT.

I hope this helps. Feel free to email us on it if you want to delve further

Re: ServiceNow integration for problems and automated maintenance scheduling

larry_roberts — Mon, 09 Nov 2020 21:53:34 GMT

Thank you both! Much appreciated!

Re: ServiceNow integration for problems and automated maintenance scheduling

Mike_L — Mon, 09 Nov 2020 21:59:20 GMT

No worries 🙂

Mike