I like ServiceNow Discovery's overall structure and the way data comes in without creating a different dashboard or interface.
Digital Solutions Architect at a comms service provider with 1-10 employees
Data comes in without the need for creating new interfaces or dashboards
Pros and Cons
- "I like ServiceNow Discovery's overall structure and the way data comes in without creating a different dashboard or interface."
- "ServiceNow has a constant development environment. Hence they get constant bugs which result in incorrect performance. It should also improve customer service."
What is most valuable?
What needs improvement?
ServiceNow has a constant development environment. Hence they get constant bugs which result in incorrect performance. It should also improve customer service.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for quite some time.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I would rate the solution's stability a ten out of ten.
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November 2024
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What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I would rate ServiceNow Discovery's scalability a ten out of ten. One of my current customers has over 10,000 users for the product.
How was the initial setup?
The product's setup is straightforward.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The product is not cheap.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate ServiceNow Discovery a ten out of ten. You would need to go on training before using the solution.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Sr. Automation Consultant (ITOM/ITAM, Cloud, DevOps at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Feature-rich with many plugins that integrates well, and they have a solid support team
Pros and Cons
- "The biggest advantage of ServiceNow is the value that it brings."
- "They can expand on the plugins for some of the other tools."
What is our primary use case?
I am a consultant. We implement solutions for our clients.
The primary use case of this solution is to automate inventory management, asset management, and discovery. It also used to integrate with other monitoring tools for instant management change.
Mainly, the primary use case would be the automatic management of inventory.
What is most valuable?
We integrate with other products.
They keep expanding even for the cloud, and there are many plugins.
The biggest advantage of ServiceNow is the value that it brings.
What needs improvement?
They can expand on the plugins for some of the other tools.
In the next release, they can automate some of the workflows similar to what they have with TAM Pro.
With the integration, they can include some of the commonly used tools such as SCCM. They can benefit from bringing in other tools for their workflows.
We are hoping that they explore or leverage some of their existing tools such as Tanium for the purposes of discovery and monitoring.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used this solution in the last 12 months.
We are up-to-date with the latest versions, but it depends on what the clients prefer. We have Orlando and New York also.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's stable. I have seen a few glitches, but not often. In general, it's pretty stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It's definitely scalable; you just have to add IP ranges and set it up.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support is strong.
We have a technical account manager assigned to the product when we purchase it and then you can find support with a person. It is very diligent and it is pretty solid.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward. It's not very complex, but there are a lot of dependencies for clients to set up their environments, such as IP ranges.
If they have a mature network architecture that is dependent on IP ranges then the setup will not be complex.
What was our ROI?
The value that they get from the product is good. Once you set it up, it's easily scalable and there's a large scope for automation and the product keeps expanding.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
There are many licensing strategies. For example, discovery is based on the number of nodes or subscription units.
It's a bit expensive compared to other products in the market, but it's worth the money you pay because it's far advanced in terms of features, automation, and capabilities compared to other products.
The sentiment that we get from clients is that ServiceNow is expensive.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate ServiceNow an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
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ServiceNow Discovery
November 2024
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Technical Architect at Sysintegra Ptv Ltd.
Good Product and Best Solution
Pros and Cons
- "They provide the ability to see into the Discovery tools I want. They offer the best tool view."
- "In terms of improvement, I would like for it to be possible to use without coding. I would like a dropdown so that every customer can do it easily for himself and can understand it."
What is our primary use case?
Primary use cases are below:
1. Infrastructure Discovery
2. Perfect CMDB
3. Application Dependency
4. More clarity on running software in the environment
5. Reduce the cost
Used this product for all environments
How has it helped my organization?
Based on discovered infrastructure, we made stable CMDB in customer environment and usage during change request.
What is most valuable?
- The security is a major part of the solution. Customers look for the best security.
- Console
- They provide the ability to see whatever customer wants to see into the Discovery tools . They offer the best tool view.
What needs improvement?
In terms of improvement, I would like for it to be possible to use without coding. I would like dropdown ootion so that every customer can modify easily as per requirements and can understand it. They shouldn't need to learn Java or another scripting.
For how long have I used the solution?
More than five years
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is very stable. It's very good. It's also scalable. Our clients are small, medium, and large size enterprises.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability is perfect.
How are customer service and technical support?
The response time should be reduced for tickets.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is very straightforward. We need to provide some security information and that's it. It takes around one week to deploy all of the configurations, max. It depends on how customers move ahead with the process.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Yes, we evaluated bmc, hp etc
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend for ServiceNow. It's very good and straightforward.
I would rate it a nine out of ten.
The dashboard should be more clear so that I can clearly see the errors. It should be a single console. I want it to be categorized by which specific issues everything is facing.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Specialist (US IT Recruiter) at MOURI Tech
Stable with good encryption but technical support isn't helpful
Pros and Cons
- "The initial setup is pretty easy."
- "Technical support has not been helpful when we have come across problems."
What is our primary use case?
We are trying to discover the laptops, machines, network devices, and cloud inventory in our organization by using ServiceNow Discovery. We wanted to have a cross-check between the SCCM and Discovery, and are trying to decide which could be a better choice.
How has it helped my organization?
Basically, when we're talking about ServiceNow Discovery, we have our own instances, and we would be giving IP subnets into it. These IP subnets would contain the range of all the CI's, which are available in the network. Then, once we start the Discovery schedules, it can scan the network and fill in the data, whichever is available on the network.
What is most valuable?
The initial setup is pretty easy.
The solution is fairly stable.
The security is very good. We have encryption supported from ServiceNow and therefore I haven't found any issues surrounding safety concerns.
What needs improvement?
The solution lacks the capability of discovering the devices which are not in the network. That is an area where they could improve upon. In the next release, we are actually looking for a solution for the devices which don't come into the network. Nowadays, because of this pandemic, most of the users are logging in from home, and we don't have any way to discover those assets. We are looking for a solution that can help us to discover those kinds of user devices.
During the initial setup, we get some errors and the solution doesn't exactly understand what they mean or how to fix them. They need to have more of an explanation so that we can accurately go about fixing the errors as they arise.
Technical support has not been helpful when we have come across problems. They take too long to respond and then don't provide helpful information.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for more than three years at this point.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability overall has been very good. It doesn't crash or freeze. There are no bugs and glitches. It's good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have been increasing pretty extensively. The users are running on a daily basis, and it is becoming one of the major sources for updating all the CI's that exist in the network.
We have an IT team of about 30 or more individuals that are on the solution.
How are customer service and technical support?
We've had to reach out to technical support in relation to the errors we get during setup. They have not been very helpful overall. In most cases, when you raise a ticket, even when it is critical, they take two to three days to respond. Even then, the response really doesn't help us address the issue. We're not very satisfied with their level of support at this time.
How was the initial setup?
It is not complex when setting up Discovery. It's pretty straightforward. That said, what happens is that after you set up the Discovery, there are different errors that you might get when you actually run the product, and that is something that needs to be improved. We get some errors and the solution doesn't give us the full information about what is causing the issue.
In terms of deployment times, it has taken four months for the implementation of ServiceNow Discovery. The strategy was very straightforward. We just we activated the ServiceNow Discovery plugin and then we analyzed the data and started filling in the Discovery details.
What about the implementation team?
We are implementing ServiceNow Discovery for our clients.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I do not know the exact cost, however, I do know that there is one particular subscription charge for the number of the CI spots we use.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We're also looking at SCCM and comparing the two solutions to see which would fit our organization better. The difference between the two, for the most part, is that ServiceNow is agentless, whereas, with SCCM, you need an agent.
What other advice do I have?
We are an implementor. We implement this product for our clients.
We are using the latest version of the solution.
We use different deployment models - both on-premises and on the cloud.
This is one of the best tools for organizations looking for a tool with agentless applications. You do not need to install an agent in any of the CI's. However, if you go for the other solution like SCCM, that is an agent-based solution, where you need to install the agent on all your end-user computers. Therefore, if an organization is looking for an agentless solution, then probably ServiceNow Discovery is a great good option.
Users should have a thorough understanding of how CMDB data tables are structured, and they should also know how Discovery works. You should also have an idea whether you would be integrating asset management along with ServiceNow Discovery or not. If you are going with a flat ServiceNow Discovery, then later on, if you want to implement asset management, then it could be quite difficult.
Overall, I would rate the solution at a seven out of ten. I would rate it higher, however, they aren't transparent when it comes to the meanings of errors we sometimes get during setup.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
CEO at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Great scripting features but some additional features for asset management are needed
Pros and Cons
- "I find that the Discovery and scripting features are the most useful."
- "On the Software Asset Management part of it, I expect additional reconciliation and Discovery features there."
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use this solution for three things: hardware asset management, software asset management, and IT service management.
Within our organization, there are 500 employees using this solution. We definitely plan to continue using this solution.
What is most valuable?
I find that the Discovery and scripting features are the most useful.
What needs improvement?
On the Software Asset Management part of it, I expect additional reconciliation and Discovery features there.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for a year and a half.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
ServiceNow Discovery is definitely stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
ServiceNow Discovery is easy to scale. It's got different bolt-ons, so you can scale up or scale down, as you require.
How are customer service and technical support?
I have raised tickets with them. I've not had to deal with them that much, but I've raised a few tickets when dealing with them, and they're quite good.
How was the initial setup?
The is no installation process. There are plugins, but most of the product is in the cloud. That's the attraction. It's a SaaS product, so a lot of it's in the cloud.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
There is a subscription for ServiceNow Discovery. It's expensive, but I think it's one of the best solutions on the market, so it's worth it.
What other advice do I have?
I would absolutely recommend ServiceNow Discovery to others. Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of seven.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Stable, easy to use, and is a convenient option within the ServiceNow framework
Pros and Cons
- "The best part about ServiceNow Discovery is that it is included in the ServiceNow suite."
- "The service mapping component is less developed than it is in other solutions, and is in need of improvement."
What is our primary use case?
I am a consultant and I work with IT service management solutions such as ServiceNow Discovery.
What is most valuable?
The best part about ServiceNow Discovery is that it is included in the ServiceNow suite. With other solutions, it is a separate product. You still have to pay an additional fee, but it is within the same framework.
The architecture is really simple and it is easy to use.
What needs improvement?
The service mapping component is less developed than it is in other solutions, and is in need of improvement. For example, BMC uses a more sophisticated mechanism to make the link between the services and the infrastructure.
This solution is a little more difficult to manage because you have two CMDBs.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We have experienced no stability problems or technical difficulties.
How are customer service and technical support?
We do not contact technical support directly because technical issues are dealt with by our integrator.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have experience with BMC and Micro Focus solutions, and they are the two best products in this space. ServiceNow discovery is younger than either of these two solutions and although it is good, it is not as good as the others. The advantage of ServiceNow Discovery is that it is totally included in the ServiceNow Suite.
It is worth noting that the BMC and Micro Focus products are more than 20 years old. By comparison, ServiceNow is only about seven years old.
What about the implementation team?
We work with an integrator who takes care of the installation. We describe what we want to see and the integrator does the job.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
This solution is a paid option within the ServiceNow framework.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
With most clients, we spend perhaps a week testing and evaluating different solutions before a decision is made on which one to implement.
What other advice do I have?
ServiceNow is a fully cloud-based solution, but for the Discovery component, you are going to have a local server to perform discovery in the network. In fact, you need to have one discovery server in each local network area, within the secure zone.
I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
A great single system of records which allows addition of other modules
Pros and Cons
- "It's a single system of record and it captures the relationships."
- "Without improvement in the patters, applications can't be discovered"
What is our primary use case?
We are primarily using Discovery to make sure that we have a single record in the CI, or a primary source of truth. Most of our customers are buying ServiceNow from the CMDB perspective as well as Discovery. Very few have moved on to the next level, which is the service mapping. Our primary use case is definitely in terms of the CMDB because they have all the processes working in silos including the SS or the CIs, it's all managed in silos. That is our biggest problem. Everybody has access to the CMDB so anybody can actually update the records.
The other thing is that we wanted to make sure that they capture the CI, the relationship between the CIs. That is our other main objective and focus.
We are an elite partner of ServiceNow and I'm the solution architect for IT operations management.
What is most valuable?
The advantage of the solution is that it's a single system of record and it captures the relationship. I need to be able to enable the plugin for DRCOG data certification.
What needs improvement?
The patterns are the biggest area where improvement could be made. If there's no pattern for application X, then you can't discover that particular application. That is a drawback of the product. ServiceNow gives the URL or specifies an application they can discover and devices they can discover. But if the customer has something else, then it's a challenge. One of my customers had an NAS device and it couldn't discover it. If you don't have the back end of ServiceNow, then unfortunately it doesn't work.
None of this applies to iPhones. ServiceNow claims it can discover iPhones but the data is very limited. It's really not applicable.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using Discovery for more than six years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I haven't had any issues with stability.
How was the initial setup?
I think the initial setup is more complex than it initially appears.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Our client uses Qualys so I was comparing that with ServiceNow. The client already has Qualys in their infrastructure. They were hoping to continue using Qualys and ingesting the data into ServiceNow. That is not a helpful integration but I wanted to evaluate it so I will suggest they use ServiceNow separately.
What other advice do I have?
The advantage of ServiceNow is that it's a single system of record which allows you to build other modules on top of it. That's the advantage of ServiceNow,
I would rate this product an eight out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Lead Solution Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
An easy to maintain solution that provides ITSM and ITOM capabilities
Pros and Cons
- "We mostly use the solution's ITSM and ITOM capabilities in most workflows."
- "ServiceNow Discovery should improve its cloud capabilities."
What is most valuable?
There are a lot of use cases with ServiceNow Discovery, as it's a huge platform. We mostly use the solution's ITSM and ITOM capabilities in most workflows.
Since I'm very much involved in the ITOM workspace, I like CMDB, CSDM, and Discovery. That's why I have been exploring ServiceNow Discovery versus Tanium. I'm quite excited about the future cloud integration potential that ServiceNow can provide.
What needs improvement?
ServiceNow Discovery should improve its cloud capabilities.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with ServiceNow Discovery for seven to eight years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I am not aware of any stability issues we had with ServiceNow Discovery.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
ServiceNow Discovery's scalability is quite good.
How are customer service and support?
ServiceNow Discovery's technical support is fine.
How was the initial setup?
ServiceNow Discovery's initial setup is not straightforward. However, once you get a grip on it, it's quite good and easy to work with.
What about the implementation team?
ServiceNow Discovery's deployment took a couple of months.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
ServiceNow Discovery's licensing is not a very small investment, but it definitely pays off.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend ServiceNow Discovery to others who want to use it. The solution is easy to maintain and integrates very well with ServiceNow CMDB.
Overall, I rate ServiceNow Discovery an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
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