Visibility to

Containers
Measurable outcomes
from CMDB
Table of contents
Transformation from Legacy IT to Fast IT 3

Visibility to docker containers 4

Visibility to Kubernetes 6

Visibility to TAGs from Kubernetes 10

Visibility to OpenShift 10

Visibility to Pivotal Cloud Foundry 11

For more information 11

Transformation from Legacy IT to Fast IT
Enterprise adoption of containers and container orchestration products like ServiceNow
Kubernetes, OpenShift, Cloud Foundry continues to grow rapidly in 2019, trans-
forming how applications are created, deployed, and managed. Enterprises is the data
are turning to containers to increase efficiency, facilitate application portability,
and enable multi-cloud IT operations.
platform which
The life cycle of containerized applications is a journey that begins with the dev-
drives automation
eloper. The developer chooses to implement containers on Docker because and delivers
it eliminates frictions in deployments and IT operations, which ultimately helps
everyone to be more agile, more productive end-to-end, and faster. Containers
outcomes for
couple both application and system dependencies (libraries) together into a ITOps/CloudOps
single artifact. In addition, containers also introduce a new layer of abstraction
inserting a new layer (the runtime/orchestrator or platform) between the infra- business units.
structure and the system. Adopting the container workflow provides many cust-
omers with the DevOps continuity they've sought but previously had to imple-
ment via more complex configuration for release and build pipelines. Containers
simplify the build/test/deploy pipelines in DevOps.

ServiceNow is the data platform which drives automation and delivers outcomes
for ITOps/CloudOps business units. Visibility to modern technology stacks drives
quantifiable outcomes to reduce cost and improve productivity for the CloudOps/
DevOps and SRE teams.

3
Visibility to docker containers
Adoption of docker in the era of new IT has seen significant uptick. According to
recent study from docker, the docker image downloads has reached 37 billion ServiceNow
with active 3.5 million apps running completely with dockers.
Discovery offers
ServiceNow Discovery offers visibility to docker containers running on Linux oper-
ating system. Visibility to docker containers is important for data governance
visibility to docker
and security use cases. For example, Oracle Database Enterprise Edition docker containers running
image installed on a Linux server should be tracked for software asset manage-
ment and vulnerability management use cases.
on Linux operating
system.

Linux server with Oracle Database docker container

4
Version and Edition of Oracle DB for software asset management

Docker image can be tracked with image ID. Discovery cannot only show the
deployed docker containers, but also reveal the docker image used by docker
engine for the run time.

5
Visibility to Kubernetes
Kubernetes has now become the de facto standard for deploying containerized
applications at scale in private, public, and hybrid cloud environments. The
largest public cloud platforms AWS, Google Cloud, Azure Cloud, IBM Cloud,
and Oracle Cloud now provide managed services for Kubernetes.

The ServiceNow ITOM solution can discover Kubernetes stack and can provide
near real-time visibility to all the Kubernetes taxonomy data in ServiceNow CMDB.

A typical CI/CD process with Jenkins generally follows the following scheme:
Checkout Code Run Unit Tests Dockerize App Push dockerized app
to Docker Registry Use Ansible Playbook to deploy the dockerized app on
Kubernetes.

The ServiceNow Discovery framework connects to Kubernetes cluster to pull

critical data elements from Kubernetes control plane to ServiceNow CMDB.

6
Event-driven discovery provides near real-time visibility to Kubernetes data in
CMDB. Discovery pattern will pull the event data based on the last execution
timestamp. The frequency of event-driven discovery is configurable and hence
customers with ephemeral workloads can collect near real-time insights in CMDB.

Steps to set up Kubernetes discovery:

7
For more details, please check the docs.servicenow.com:
Kubernetes
Kubernetes—Event Driven

Screenshots—Kubernetes discovery

On-demand reporting from CMDB Query builder and dependency view on k8s objects.

8
9
Visibility to TAGs from Kubernetes
Labels are key/value pairs that are attached to Kubernetes objects, such as pods. Labels are intended to be used to
specify identifying attributes of objects that are meaningful and relevant to users, but do not directly imply semantics to the
core system. ServiceNow Discovery can detect label data and populate these elements in to CMDB key value pair table.

Visibility to OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift is one of the most popular container and Kubernetes platforms on the market today. OpenShift provides
all the capabilities for IT operations teams to deploy and manage containerized applications including the Kubernetes
distribution itself, but also the container runtime, storage and networking capabilities, logging and management, authen-
tication and security capabilities.

For application developers, OpenShift provides a broad range of developer tools including build automation, release pipe-
lines, and project management capabilities that tightly integrate with the Kubernetes foundation. Additionally, OpenShift
supports a broad range of application runtimes, databases, and newer technologies like service mesh and k-native-based
serverless capabilities.

ServiceNow provides visibility to OpenShift constructs like deployment configs, build configs, routes, groups, users, projects,
images, and image streams.

10
Visibility to Pivotal Cloud Foundry
For more information:
Container platforms are a hot topic in the enterprise. They represent a top invest-
ment theme in the executive stories of digital transformation. Cloud Foundry • https://www.servicenow.com/
continues to have a dedicated loyal group of enterprises using their platforms products/discovery.html
to run PaaS containers. ServiceNow ITOM Visibility supports discovery of cloud • https://www.servicenow.com/
foundry cluster, organization, quota, route, space, services, applications, and products/service-mapping.html
other critical elements from the PCF layer.

© 2019 ServiceNow, Inc. ServiceNow, the ServiceNow logo, Now, Now Platform, and other ServiceNow marks are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc.
in the United States and/or other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.
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