ServiceNow CMDB Reviews

For one of our current customers, they have prepared the CMDB by manually importing the JIRA data from their existing infrastructure —the data module, services, servers, application servers, database, database container, and database data—and they've asked us to handle the application business. 

The customer has two repositories. The first is for modeling the application architecture. The second is for delivery management as well as integrating the data between the release control platform and our platform for business applications. And from this one, we support only the relationships between the CIs and we have produced a mapping to update the relationship between all the CIs.

In the past, when working for a banking client, we adopted two different types of deployments based on our customer's needs. The first one was improvised and the second one was in the cloud. We had to do mapping between discovery and the CMDB service BMC because they did not previously have CMDB or ServiceNow. We closed the assets activity between BMC and ServiceNow platform. 

We have thousands of users engaged in a wide range of activities around the solution, such as the infrastructure and request management team. We're working with many plugins and a lot of features.

I like ServiceNow CMDB's discovery tools. If you have discovery tools and the discovery tools are built around a philosophy of mapping, then we can implement a top-down architectural mapping of the elements in the upper structure and create your CI. We can directly map for the dependencies among your infrastructure, hardware, and software. If you do not have discovery tools, we can still populate the CMDB but for the administrator, it's very hard.

There's room for improvement in terms of integration. When we integrate a customer's foundational data, we get the core of their business from the integration. Because the process is not done through scripting, getting elected in the administrative solution can have value.  But with ServiceNow, there is sometimes an added risk for the workflow in the activity.

About five years. We started with the Eureka release in 2016. After that, we upgraded to Fiji and our most recent upgrade is Geneva. I'm not a specialist in ServiceNow. I am an IT service management consultant. I advise on all activities concerning the best practice of ETL process. I am involved in the CMS configuration. I coordinate activity between asset management and discovery within the CMDB, but the scripting on the platform is not my task. In the bank, I have offshore teams for development from my side.

ServiceNow is a stable solution. 

We have a philosophy for IT service management. When we create your infrastructure, we don't change the core. We can build an overlay on your process but we don't change the core of the process. When we update the solution, we generally update the core.  

Support is good. We have an in-house specialist, and if they have a workaround, we will use that.  But sometimes we'll still need to escalate to ServiceNow support. Generally, if we have a solution, we apply the solution, and we don't need to create a support ticket.

Before ServiceNow, I used BMC. From my point of view, BMC is the best. BMC is a solution rooted in best practices. At the moment, there are a lot of ServiceNow developers, but they have no understanding of the impact of the services. They're looking to develop a new plugin before understanding the best practices of how to use it in the short version. The solution is mature, and they have a lot of modules. Maturity comes into play when customers need to develop something. But sometimes when we develop some root system, there can be a drift on your platform. When there is a drift on your platform, the impact on the application is great sometimes. We can lose some functionality after the update. 

We use a common model— a generic collection. If you respect the common model, implementing CMDB is seamless. But if we don't respect the common model, it can complicate the relationship between CIs. However, using the common model, you can achieve a seamless mapping of the infrastructure with your CMDB.  Generally, it takes a couple of months to populate a CMDB depending on the scope. For example, we might start with the servers, and after that, we can look at the software, then the databases, and the middleware applications for application servers, networking, and storage.

It takes a long time to deploy depending on the volume of the infrastructure. It takes a lot longer if you have thousands of servers. Some elements of our procedure apply more for small businesses and others for big ones. In the bank, we have a big discovery process. We have thousands of elements in our city and hundreds of data centers. Implementation at the bank took more than a month just to activate all data in one building.

I have no idea about the pricing of the solution. Two or three years ago, they changed the model. Now you can access ServiceNow CMDB with a nominal license. Before we can gave all users an IQ profile to access the CMDB core. I think they have changed it a few times since.

If you are implementing ServiceNow or any CMDB solution, you have to start by properly sizing up the scope. We start at the level of the server and application, then look at the network. And after looking at the network, we turn to storage infrastructure. By working step by step, we can read your infrastructure to develop the topology of the infrastructure in your CMDB. We cannot start from scratch. It's not likely that we can build a CMDB in just a few days.

All in all, I would rate ServiceNow CMBD eight out of 10.

I am with a consulting company that implements the tool. I am working to implement ServiceNow in different areas such as SACM and software asset management. CMDB is the underlying database, and I populate it with the data from the clients based on their input and needs.

It has helped in tracking hardware and software and reducing overall costs.

When running large queries within the system, it does have a tendency to bog down the system. This is something that should be improved. I would also like to see the HAM Pro module beefed up a little bit and integrated better into the SAM Pro module, which seems to be pretty much on the roadmap.

Its pricing is pretty complicated and always fluctuating. Its pricing should be improved.

I've been using this tool for about seven years.

It is stable.

We do customizations for clients all the time.

For the most part, I would probably give them a nine out of ten. They are quite responsive.

Its initial process was very complex because there were a lot of customizations. The deployment took about six months.

In terms of the implementation strategy, we followed the standard waterfall methodology. Basically, we stood it up, did all our work and development, and pushed it to production.

It is always fluctuating. It seems to change every six months. Every time they come out with a new iteration, it changes. It is pretty complicated, and they should improve it.

I would absolutely recommend this solution to others. I would advise making sure that they know what they want. The biggest problem that we run into is the client not having a direction in which they want to go, or they don't have a use case to start with.

I would rate ServiceNow CMDB a nine out of ten.

CMDB is used for capturing all the IT hardware assets and configuration items. That includes computers, servers, virtual machines, phone devices, switches, et cetera. It's for the network and the front and back end.

There is a data mixer that's called Management and Commission and Discovery. What it does is it helps us auto-populate the information directly by pinging that particular CI and capturing that information. That's a very good feature. It makes it so that we don't have to go for manual updates every time.

There is a lot of documentation online regarding CMDB.

The solution is stable. 

The solution can scale to a certain extent. 

Right now, it's a one-sided integration, which means that whatever information is available in SLCN, for example, the mixer will capture the information. Therefore, there are scenarios where some of the CIs get retired. It does not really update their status. For example, We have 10 servers. Two were retired, so they were not updating anything. For the rest of the eight, they updated information. However, for the two which were retired, there needs to be a modern option for modifying the state as well in mid-server. 

The need to work on how the Virtual Machine Centers are being discovered, and how the Cloud's CI is being discovered and flagged.

The initial setup is a bit complex. 

The scalability capability could be improved. 

The pricing could be more competitive. 

The stability is good. there are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

The solution is scalable, however, there is some room for improvement regarding the vCenter and the Virtual Machine Center, for which we are actually struggling right now.

In our organization, CMDB is used by everyone.

The initial implementation is a bit complex compared to other modules as it's really technical in the back end. The steps are clearly defined on how to do it and there's a use case library available. That said, it's a bit of a tedious process.

You do have to pay for a license, however, I cannot speak to the exact details. It's not part of my responsibilities. My understanding, however, is that pricing could always be better. 

I would advise that before a company starts implementing CMDB, they should look at the CSBM. They should understand CSBM as it is common, however, they need to understand the requirements, and how the structure should be set up before implementing anything. The reason being, there are scenarios where people put all the data into the system, and that causes a blockage, which means that you don't have to actually document every CI. A company should see what should be the scope of the CMDB, and only then start implementing it. Otherwise, it will be a lot of information available that serves no use. 

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

The solution has a single database, architecture, and data model. 

The tool is not user-friendly. It has a lot of features and you can get lost in it. 

I have been using the solution for six years. 

The solution is stable. 

There are about 250 users for the solution in our company. 

The product is pricey. 

I would rate the product a nine out of ten. The solution is easy to use. 

My company is a reseller, we're not the end-user. We don't have ServiceNow ourselves. We develop and we're a service provider, so we only provide ServiceNow solutions.

All areas of the solution have room for improvement. I mean, it's a never-ending thing, everything's being improved all the time. Because I'm an SME, the most important thing is the technical help that I can get, so better, more useful technical support would be good.

I also think the solution would be better if it was more intuitive.

I've only been using the solution for about six months, but the company that I work for has probably been using it for five to ten years.

The stability is about the same as other platforms. It's not better or worse than other products. It's not perfect, but it's pretty good.

The scalability of the solution is good.

It's a complex task, but the ServiceNow version is probably not any more difficult than any other platform.

You pay for the service and whatever extra features you want. If you want minimal service and don't want the extra features, you don't pay for them.

My advice for people looking into the solution would be to have a big bank account.

I rate this solution an eight out of ten. 

We use the product to maintain the hardware inventory.

ServiceNow CMDB helps us maintain hardware. We do not have to proceed manually.

The product's most valuable feature is its ability to extract the details of organizational hardware and provide the latest setup updates.

The platform's stability needs improvement. They could add a dashboard feature as well.

We have been using ServiceNow CMDB for three years.

I rate the platform's stability a seven out of ten. It needs improvement.

We have 20 ServiceNow CMDB in our organization. It has good scalability, and we plan to increase the usage.

The initial setup has medium complexity. It can be deployed on the cloud and takes a week to complete.

We implement the product in-house.

I rate ServiceNow CMDB an eight out of ten. I recommend it to other users. I advise others to understand how the product works, different prerequisites for setup, existing network, and rules that need to be activated.

The support of the whole infrastructure is one of the main features that makes ServiceNow CMDB suitable for every type of company. It integrates with all other modules like change, business management, HR, and customer service management.

Whenever there is an issue on statuses, you can quickly resolve it.

The initial setup can be very bad if the roadmap is not set up properly. You need a specialist to help you set up the roadmap.

I've been using it for almost 8 years.

Most of the customers have the cloud solution.

It's a very stable solution.

It's very scalable. You can start from a very small size and grow. You can configure, customize, etc.

ServiceNow moves very fast to fix any problems. I would rate their technical support at ten out of ten.

Positive

CMDB is like a journey that requires a specialist's help to build your roadmap. If you get the right resource to build your roadmap, then it's very easy to launch, depending on the process of the company. If it's not properly set up, then it can be very bad.

ServiceNow CMDB is an excellent solution, and I would rate it at ten on a scale from one to ten.