ServiceNow Native Applications for Integrations

How To Deliver ServiceNow Data Integration At Enterprise Scale

Why organizations should consider ServiceNow-native applications for integrations

ServiceNow data integration can help large enterprises remove data and informational silos and make operations more efficient.

Across industries, companies leverage solutions like ServiceNow for IT Service Management. Connecting third-party applications to ServiceNow enables inter-application workflows, helping organizations become much more efficient.

ServiceNow is a common target for implementing ITSM integrations. Common ServiceNow integration use cases include ServiceNow to ServiceNow Integrations, ServiceNow to Jira Integrations, ServiceNow to Salesforce Integrations, and ServiceNow to Snowflake.

There are many benefits to ServiceNow integrations, but let’s focus on the “how.”

How to integrate ServiceNow: Integration options

There are two main types of ServiceNow integrations:

• Custom-built integrations
• ServiceNow-native integrations

Custom integrations are built either in-house or through an integration provider using custom code. They typically leverage web-based technologies such as API calls to create the integration. For smaller organizations, this approach can be a cost-effective means of integration. However, since the API calls compete for and consume ServiceNow bandwidth, organizations with large data volumes suffer huge impacts on ServiceNow’s performance. 

If you decide to build the integration in-house, custom integrations require significant resources to manage, and maintenance is an ongoing project.

ServiceNow-native integrations are a pre-built solution for integrations that can be managed within ServiceNow’s interface. Native applications for ServiceNow integrations can facilitate secure data extraction without consuming your ServiceNow instance bandwidth. This means organizations avoid the performance issues associated with custom integrations. They are also managed, tested and maintained by service providers with the necessary expertise, so organizations can rely on them and not expend valuable internal resources.

What you should keep in mind

While system and data integration is vital for modern organizations to stay competitive, poorly implemented integrations can be costly.

Poorly integrated systems increase the risk of failures during data exchanges, leading to down-time and data loss.

If the integration affects the performance of your ServiceNow instance, data availability is impacted, also. The effects of this can be felt across the enterprise in the form of incomplete, inaccurate, or delayed reports, slower time-to-resolution of open cases, and more.

So as you embark on your ServiceNow integration project, it is important to understand the scope of the project. ServiceNow is presumably a critical solution to your enterprise, and any downtime or reduced data quality can result in a significant impact on your customers and employees.

A best practice for automating your business operations is to create a well-defined integration plan. This helps limit any technical glitches, lowers the scope of data failure, and allows you to have a smoother workflow with a higher degree of operational resilience.

For example, enterprises with large data volumes and complex enterprise architectures might be tempted by custom integration solutions, as opposed to native, ready-built integrations.

Some opt to work with vendors to build such custom integration on their behalf. However, this approach often fails to consider the many hours it takes to build an integration and the subsequent hours spent on maintenance. The ongoing, ever-growing cost of the project is something else to consider, as well as the cost of failures, delays, and downtime – all more likely with custom integrations.

Furthermore, custom ServiceNow integrations tend to impact the performance of your ServiceNow instance – especially when large data volumes are involved.

A well-considered, well-defined integration plan would account for these risks, helping the organization calculate the true, total cost of ownership.

While at first, it may seem more expensive to opt for a native integration solution, for enterprises with large data volumes, the cost of the project over time will likely be lower.

The following industry best practices will help you deliver ServiceNow Data Integration at an enterprise scale.

Consider relying on ServiceNow Functionalities.

ServiceNow supports a native application for integrating the platform. This allows ServiceNow users to manage and monitor the integration status from within ServiceNow. No custom code, no switching between applications, and no new tools to onboard. Native applications lead to fewer troubleshooting issues, fewer clashes, less confusion between software functions, and an improved, user-friendly integration experience.

Don’t opt for “cheap” custom-built ServiceNow integrations. Go for the real deal.

First of all, “cheap” in this scenario simply can’t be guaranteed. While the initial cost to build a custom integration might seem tempting, the total cost of the project includes the maintenance, inevitable upgrades, and the cost of any integration failures – which are significantly more likely when using custom code.

Furthermore, custom-built ServiceNow data integration is unscalable. The impacts to performance as the volume of data transactions grow are significant. They can force organizations into workarounds – such as bulk exporting data outside of working hours (where possible), on weekends for example. And even then, performance impacts can be so severe that the export times out, fails, or is still incomplete when the business re-opens.

• Case Study: Fujitsu found that extracting ServiceNow data took up too much time – and interfered with their 24-hour global service delivery. Here’s how they overcame the issue.

Consider the size of your organization before investing in your integration project.  For a reliable approach to ServiceNow integration – without having to build and maintain it yourself, without impacting performance, and all from within a native ServiceNow app – you will want to consider an expert ServiceNow workflow integration solution like Perspectium’s ServiceBond.

Implement a dashboard for monitoring integration status

This dashboard should have a real-time representation of the ServiceNow instance and the health of the integration status.

Only Perspectium provides real-time, scalable ServiceNow integrations that help you understand your business in a meaningful way.

Imagine if your teams could get all the data they needed – in real-time – where they need it, without impacting the people using the applications. Employees could use their BI tool of choice to deliver accurate, current insights into your business – insights that you could use to make decisions, perform better, avoid surprises and provide improved customer service.

If you want to move large amounts of data without impacting performance, then Perspectium’s DataSync is your ideal solution. Your data will remain secure and private due to end-to-end and at-rest encryption. What’s more? The performance of your application instances is minimally impacted due to “push” data streaming. Learn more

Leverage overhead management systems

While integrating ServiceNow records, retrieving the required number of records is crucial to avoid larger loads that could ultimately risk a system failure. Using overhead management systems will ensure applications and integrations do not consume too many resources.

Ensure your data integration works with ServiceNow, not against it

A healthy integration ensures your team is well integrated and working closely with ServiceNow, with access to data they need, when and where they need it. A native application for facilitating ServiceNow integrations can help achieve this. This is because a native application for ServiceNow integrations does not suffer the performance impacts associated with building custom integrations.

For the sake of your company’s scalability, the performance of your ServiceNow instance is crucial. A rapidly growing company cannot afford the bottleneck of a faltering ITSM instance. If it crawls, so does your work.

We recommend opting for an automated integration solution that uses push technology to export ServiceNow data changes in real-time. With Perspectium, such dynamic replication avoids noticeable performance impacts on the ServiceNow platform.

Perspectium DataSync runs natively in ServiceNow. DataSync’s message queuing prevents data loss, and its end-to-end encryption keeps data secure. More importantly, its “push” data streaming minimizes impacts on ServiceNow – letting the entire organization enjoy the full power of their ServiceNow investment.

Handle data vulnerability correctly.

While implementing data integration, it is critical to use ServiceNow’s Security Operations Integration Frameworks. Enterprises must use this component provided by ServiceNow while adding new integrations or new developments to the system. The framework will help your systems handle any data vulnerabilities and threats that might put your systems at unnecessary risk.

Choose the right partner.

The right integration solution can improve data quality, helping you maintain and advance your service management. Perspectium provides the highest data transfer rate, with the least performance impact on the applications.

Unlike a typical point-to-point replication tool, the Perspectium solution is built on a highly scalable enterprise message-bus architecture that allows database loads of 200 records per second per thread. This architecture differs significantly from traditional solutions.

With a message bus, all systems follow the same standards and can share a consistent method of transferring data between the systems. Any new system can plug into the bus as long as it meets the standards.

Perspectium’s message-bus architecture is a Message Broker Service (MBS) that combines with a native application to reduce the overhead involved with web services and to keep control over what is shared within the application. Data is encrypted before it leaves and pushed into a single stream to multiple endpoints.

Perspectium’s MBS is a highly scalable and distributable cloud-based service. By maximizing availability, businesses can easily replicate data to as many endpoints as desired with no impact or change to the endpoints. The MBS gives you the power to track, retain and control your data.

Combining the MBS with native applications and function-specific agents provides the optimum solution for a unified integration platform.

Having all the essential features of an integration solution, Perspectium, with its highly scalable enterprise message-bus architecture, gets the right data to the right place at the right time.

Perspectium also provides a flexible publish and subscribe framework that can be integrated into your existing ServiceNow interface. Learn more about it here.

Why choose Perspectium:

We’ve worked with several clients to enable a significant reduction in the both development time and costs required for integration, including considerable savings over initial DIY development costs and ongoing self-maintenance.

By leveraging our deep understanding of ServiceNow processes and data models and expertise in providing integration as a service, we’ve helped businesses achieve real-time process integration and data replication without impacting application performance.

Need help with your ServiceNow integration project? Speak to us today.

In The Unrivaled Guide to Data Integration for Service Management, you’ll learn why companies integrate data, what good data integration looks like, and how you can maintain the health of your data integration solution.