How to Integrate ServiceNow CMDB Data with Other Applications and Databases

Organizations can integrate ServiceNow CMDB data with external databases and applications to make more use out of their ServiceNow data.

Integrating the ServiceNow CMDB with external databases and applications helps to create a consistent view of enterprise data between solutions.

It allows organizations to make better use of their ServiceNow data by:

• extracting and replicating the data within solutions for Analytics, Business Intelligence (BI), Reporting, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML).
• synchronizing one ServiceNow instance with another, or ServiceNow with 3rd-party applications.

What is the ServiceNow CMDB?

A configuration management database (CMDB) describes a database used by organizations to store information about its IT assets and infrastructure and the relationships between them. 

The goal of a CMDB is to provide a big-picture view of an organization’s assets relating to IT. CMDB’s function as a data warehouse where a company can store critical data about its configuration items (CIs) that need to be managed to deliver an effective IT service.

The ServiceNow CMDB is ServiceNow’s Configuration Management Database application. It is available with and delivered via the Now Platform.

Why Integrate ServiceNow CMDB Data

The ServiceNow CMDB is a rich source of enterprise data. As such, organizations can maximize the value of this data by integrating it with complementary applications such as Analytics, Business Intelligence, Reporting, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.

As well as helping organizations make better use of the data stored within the ServiceNow CMDB, integrations can help avoid the pitfalls of data debt by reducing the amount of “dark data” within the platform. 

Analyst firm Gartner, defines “dark data” as “The information assets organizations collect, process, and store during regular business activities, but generally fail to use for other purposes (for example, analytics, business relationships, and direct monetizing).” 

As it goes unused, organizations often neglect the management of “dark data”, which is why it can contribute to data debt.

See also: Managing Data Debt and Dark Data

Benefits of ServiceNow CMDB Integration

Organizations that integrate ServiceNow CMDB data with third-party apps and databases provides the following benefits: 

• Connect your digital ecosystem – Integrate and sync applications across your enterprise’s ecosystem for enhanced automation and improved service delivery.
• Streamline digital lifecycle management – Disintegrate enterprise data silos with a centralized repository for all IT Service Management data. 
• Improve collaboration between departments – Integrations connect teams across the organization, providing a single source of truth to improve alignment between them.
• Prevent and mitigate service outages – A well-synced CMDB helps identify and prevent service outages stemming from unplanned changes and misconfiguration. Teams can proactively diagnose issues and fix costly service outages faster with instant access to the right enterprise data.
• Boost business profits – Maximize your application portfolio’s ROI and accelerate time-to-market for new services.

See also: How Data Integration Improves Your Service Management

How to Integrate ServiceNow CMDB With External Apps and Databases?

There are a number of different options available for integrating the ServiceNow CMDB CMDB with external apps and databases. 

The right one for your organization depends on your requirements and whether the integration goal is to create dynamic synchronizations between solutions, or to facilitate batch data transfers (i.e. for reporting or use in BI, AI or ML solutions). 

Types of ServiceNow CMDB Integration

Swivel Chair

Describes manual integrations – where an employee copies information from one tool into another. There are obvious shortcomings with this approach – including the lack of encryption and increased risk to security – but it is relatively cheap, and appropriate for very small-scale integrations.

DIY

Do-It-Yourself approaches typically rely on web service interfaces written inhouse by a “spare” developer to perform an integration task. Since they are created for a specific task, any changes to that task usually require a re-write and re-test of the (typically undocumented) integration.

Often, organizations who find this approach initially appropriate, run into problems when their reliance on the integration and the volume of data it transfers increases.

Internal resources can quickly become overwhelmed by maintenance requirements, or even by the scale of work required to build the integration in the first place.

• See also: The Hidden Costs of DIY Integration

ETL Tools

Extract, Transform, Load tools are one of the older forms of integration, delivering datastore to datastore transfers of data. They work well in situations where application business rules or security requirements don’t matter.

They are good for staying within (behind) a firewall, when data is not time sensitive. 

iPaaS

Integration Platform as a Service tools deliver a platform on which you can build your own integrations, and are often API/web-services-based and come with a vast array of connectors.

However, organizations should be aware that to function, API/web-services based approaches to integration rely on the same bandwidth ServiceNow uses to operate.

This means that as data volumes within ServiceNow – and the volume of data required to transfer from ServiceNow – grows, the integration can negatively impact the performance of ServiceNow itself.

It’s also important to note that these solutions just deliver a platform – the creation and management of the actual integration is left to the customer.

These tools are often used by large organizations where the data warehouse team makes the integration buying decisions – since they are looking for a single solution that will work with most data from most applications.

ServiceNow Integration Hub

ServiceNow’s own web-services based integration technology. This product is delivered in the same “style” as iPaaS solutions – in that a platform is provided, and it is up to the customer to create the actual integration on top of that with the tools provided.

This approach is good for trigger-based integrations like chat and remote control, and for when you want to keep iPaaS inside ServiceNow.

IaaS

Integration as a Service is an approach to integration whereby the integration provider implements, maintains and provides support for the integration.

As the integrations are delivered by experts, this is often the most reliable way to integrate ServiceNow CMDB data with external applications and databases.

They also benefit the customer organization in that external resources aren’t consumed in simply keeping the integration alive, and so can be better used to pursue value-adding initiatives.

Integration Use Cases

The use case for the integration is another factor to consider. The two primary types of integration for the ServiceNow CMDB are bulk data transfers via data replication, and eBonding/sychronization.

Bulk Data Transfers

For organizations that wish to extract ServiceNow data in bulk and replicate it to an external database so it can be better used by the organization. Examples of this use case include replicating data to reporting, analytics, AI, BI or ML solutions.  

eBonding/Synchronization

For organizations that wish to create a dynamic synchronization between ServiceNow and third-party applications. This type of integration helps organizations eBond ServiceNow with another ServiceNow instance, or with third-party applications.

By eBonding ServiceNow with the desired end-point, organizations can keep otherwise disparate systems in constant sync to create a single source of truth.

Note that if you plan on working with an integration provider, not all providers address both use cases.

• See also: Essential Features of an Integration Solution 

Enterprise-scale ServiceNow CMDB Integrations

For organizations with large data volumes in ServiceNow, Perspectium provides a ServiceNow-native application and fully-managed service, endorsed by and used by ServiceNow themselves. 

The solution was created by David Loo, the founding developer of ServiceNow, who used their intimate knowledge of the solution to provide reliable applications and fully-managed services for ServiceNow integrations.

Avoid Performance Degradation

Perspectium applications avoid the performance degradation associated with traditional, API/web-services-based approaches to integration. 

That’s because instead of relying on API/web-services to facilitate the replication and transfer of data, Perspectium uses push technology to replicate data to a cloud-enabled message broker system. 

Therefore, Perspectium users can have confidence that the performance of their ServiceNow instance is maintained. 

Fully Managed Service

A fully-managed service, Perspectium is a true integration-as-a-service (IaaS), not an integration platform-as-a-service.

As such, Perspectium customers do not have to expend internal resources to implement and maintain the integration – Perspectium’s integration experts handle this, and also provide 24/7, 365 support for the applications.

Bulk Transfers and eBonding

DataSync is Perspectium’s solution for replicating ServiceNow data to an external database via bulk transfer. Through this integration, organizations can replicate their ServiceNow data to solutions such as reporting, analytics, BI, AI and ML solutions.

For organizations that want to synchronize multiple ServiceNow instances, or sync ServiceNow with supported 3rd-party solutions, Perspectium provides an eBonding solution – ServiceBond. 

• See also: ServiceBond eBonding end-points

Why opt for Perspectium?

Perspectium users enjoy the following benefits:

• Perspectium does not use API calls to facilitate integrations. Using the“push” technology and a Message Broker System (MBS), it can connect the ServiceNow CMDB to external apps and systems without degrading performance.
• By queuing data transfers in a message-bus, Perspectium safeguards against data loss in case of an outage at the end-point.
• Your ServiceNow data is encrypted at-rest, and in-transit, so data extraction and replication is highly secure. 
• A trusted ServiceNow partner, Perspectium experts fully understand the needs of ServiceNow integrations. They manage, maintain, and upgrade all your integrations 24x7x365. 
• As it’s delivered as a native application, Perspectium saves organization’s and their employees time, as the integration is interacted with via the ServiceNow interface with which they are already familiar.

Want to learn more about Perspectium and how we integrate ServiceNow CMDB data, or speak with us about your integration goals? Click here.