Microsoft Azure Data Services Integration into ServiceNow
ServiceNow is a SaaS based application that provides service management software via multiple offerings such as: IT services management (ITSM), IT operations management (ITOM) and IT business management (ITBM). ServiceNow is a leader within the Gartner Magic Quadrant and holds a position in the top right of the quadrant as a visionary. ServiceNow ITSM, provides the ability to track/monitor tickets created and resolve quickly and effectively. For users who want to analyze incidents and track progress, ServiceNow does provide out of the box reporting and analytics capabilities. In our use scenario, our customer wanted the ability to leverage an analytics platform like PowerBI in order to slice and dice and visualize the data in a variety of ways. More specifically, there was a need to understand cross functional ITSM impacts on other areas of the organization to develop a comprehensive view and explore potential metrics and KPIs through a single integrated data view. Hence, extracting data from ServiceNow into Azure and/or PowerBI integration into ServiceNow was established and a defined requirement. In addition, our customer wanted to create a POC to apply ML/AI on ITSM operations to understand root cause analysis and directly impact cost. There is a finite and measurable cost for each ticket created. The sooner major incidents can be identified and resolved, the more they would save on costs. ML/AI leveraged models that could identify root cause, minimize duplication of tickets, reduce time to resolution and further reduce the operational complexity of managing a large number of open tickets all resulting in a simplified, better managed process with a measurable cost savings. This post will demonstrate the integration options between Azure and ServiceNow as well as leveraging Azure to apply AI/ML on some of the scenarios described earlier. We will share some of the learnings we had as we went through this journey.
