Getting a Deeper Look at Your IBM® Z and IBM i Data in ServiceNow

Editor's Notes

1. Spent a lot of $$ already and you have a blind spot in your system
2. KEY TALKING POINTS Leaving these key platforms outside of the ServiceNow environment can cost you business money You may be managing these IVM systems separately but that is not an effective approach Ask the customer the two “Ask Yourself” questions Finally … reiterate the point that IT incidents are costly and eliminating them can have a direct cost savings
3. Talk Track: So, it is clear both IT operations management platforms and mainframe and IBM i systems are vital to the business today. However, leading ITOM platforms lack native integration with Mainframe and IBM i integration, and there are plenty of reasons for this. The types of data generated by these legacy systems are vast and they cannot be understood by modern platforms because they were not built to do this. Often, teams will require an SME or consultant to even access the data from the mainframe and IBM i. These systems are also generating huge amounts of data, resulting in millions of logs generated daily. Even if teams have developed a work around to deliver machine and log data from these systems into ITOM platforms, it is never in real time. They may need to wait for overnight offloads that cannot get granular, so they lose both time and specificity. All of these integration challenges compound, resulting in the mainframe and IBM i systems being in a data silo. Mainframe and IBM i have a lot of integration challenges (pull from slide 13)
4. Ask Ian for more recent screen shots Talk Track: First up is Ironstream for Discovery. By integrating you mainframe and IBM i into your Discovery workflow you are able to deliver a single view of your entire infrastructure to enable smarter, faster IT decisions. Ironstream allows customers to rapidly configure and launch secure discovery of the mainframe and IBM i resources and their relationships. It also produces automated relationship mapping that includes the mainframe and IBM i. You can also record changes made to the mainframe and IBM i systems in the CMDB without any manual intervention. You can trust Ironstream to for accurate, real-time insights into your mainframe and IBM i without the risk associated with homegrown applications.
5. Thank you, Bill...thanks for the great lead-in and setting the scene. Now...I am going to start with a fundamental question: What is Ironstream? The reason I want to answer this...is because Ironstream is a growing...evolving product...that is being used for many different things...by many organizations. ****Click***** Ironstream has become a "data integration layer" for IT infrastructure information as well as log and machine data delivery to many different tools. We often call it the "IT glue" for the solutions that you are using today And there’s really two reasons for this… 1. Ironstream can be used for MANY different things to bind IT data to tools such as ServiceNow And 2. Ironstream becomes a very sticky product. Once customers understand what they can do with Ironstream they put it to use in so many different use cases...and it becomes a "must have" part of their infrastructure
6. With that in mind…Ironstream is now capable of capturing IT information from the IBM platforms and delivering it to MANY different targets. It really is as easy as... Selecting a source...and adding one or more targets… Completing the connection information… And starting a data pipeline. Because what we're seeing is customers are often using multiple tools for different use cases... And they are changing tools on a more frequent basis. So, we've developed what we call the Ironstream Hub...as a component within the Ironstream family...that allows customers to quickly and easily connect their IBM IT information to the tools they use. ***click*** Tools like ServiceNow... Where the hub delivers IT information to the ServiceNow CMDB.
7. And this is what the Hub looks like. It is a modern, browser-based interface that allows you to connect a source to a target… Such as IBMi to QRadar for tracking security use cases. The Hub implements data pipelines which control the flow of information from the IBM platforms to the targets you are using...like ServiceNow. This makes it really easy...depending on the target...to apply filtering and conversions...so users get exactly what they need. Plus, the hub makes is super simple to add and change targets as your business needs evolve. So...it suitable for use cases today...and tomorrow.
8. This webinar is about ServiceNow…so, let's put this in the context of this target tool. ServiceNow typically uses a 3-tier architecture: - Sources where the information is gathered from a customers environment - a middle tear for in-flight processing... Known as the MID server... Which acts as the gateway to... - and the third tier which is the ServiceNow application (or target tool) in the cloud
9. And Ironstream follows the same architecture. We have agents that collect information from the IBM platforms... Delivery through the mid-tier...And out to the applications running elsewhere...like ServiveNow ... These target tools can be in the cloud or on premise. We really don't care where they are. So, we're not inventing something radically different… We're using proven...architectural patterns.
10. So, returning back to ServiceNow I highly recommend you go to the service now store and search for "ironstream" to find six apps: There are 3 for main frame… And 3 for IBMi. Covering... - Discovery - Service mapping - and event management All are certified and approved by service now... Allowing IBM information to appear...just like any other information...in your service now instance. And of course, we keep these up-to-date with the latest additions of the now platform. And there is more to come...we're looking at further expansions across our integrations with service now
11. But…let’s zoom in a bit closer and take a look at some of the rationale for using the CMDB with the IBM platforms We sometimes hear from customers that they see no value in bringing the IBM platforms into service now... And they often say that these platforms don't change. This is generally not true… Because these platforms DO change. And our customers say to us that it is also valuable to know that something HASN'T changed because that gives you a definitive point of reference...and eliminates dangerous assumptions. But… How do you know if you don't have a fully populated CMDB? If you're missing a major part of your infrastructure from that view...you are at a disadvantage. If you DO have the information in the CMDB... You can easily audit what you have... Especially when it is automated and contains up-to-date information. You can also determine what has changed... But how do you know if the data is not accurate? Plus, you can now make assessments around understanding what is critical to your business...what is affected by a change... And see how things depend on each other and are related So, getting this information from the IBM platforms into tools like service now just makes perfect sense. These environments are still part of your IT infrastructure, and they should be included in the same tools you use every day.
12. So...that's Ironstream for ServiceNow as it stands today We can capture and automate the maintenance of essential IBM platform information in your CMDB But there is more to come...and we have some exciting updates planned
13. First, let's look at what service now offers out of the box for the IBM platforms. Fundamentally, its not a lot. I always say it's like you've been left at the front door. Service now can give you some information, but it is very limited… Slightly more for IBMi than mainframe. It's a bit like taking you to the front door of a very large house, but you have no idea what's beyond the door What is the layout? How many rooms? What size are they? What's in the rooms, etc. Similarly, you know you have a mainframe, but you don't know what's actually running on it and how things are connected. Out of the box...ServiceNow tells you there is a mainframe or IBMi...not not much more. And this is where Ironstream comes in.
14. But there is always room for improvement. So...to make the out of the box experience even better…the team here at Precisely is working with ServiceNow on aligning and updating the ServiceNow CMDB for the IBM platforms. We've already delivered the first phase of this… And this is available on the service now store. Look for "CMDB CI class models" to get the first set of changes...where you will see new attributes added to the IBM platform-oriented classes.
15. And...there's much more to come. Phase 2 of the CMDB updates is MUCH bigger and will cover components like CICS, Db2, MQ and IMS. These updates help ServiceNow… and you as customers… But it also gives us a great foundation to build on for the other exciting updates we have planned For example… We are improving software discovery. This is coming later this year where we will deliver better discovery of mainframe software so that you can complete your inventory in software asset management. Plus… We have further improvements beyond what we are doing today with Discovery. We are adding more capabilities to make this even more valuable. And… Service mapping is also in our sights for an exciting update. And we're not stopping there...we have other integrations waiting in the wings So...with that...I'll hand it back to Bill.