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Service Now Overview

Service Now is an application that helps automate fault management and accelerate issue resolution. It significantly reduces intervening time by automating support processes and uses device diagnostics for fault monitoring and case automation. The process of obtaining technical support from Juniper is simplified and the time taken to get resolutions is reduced by eliminating time consuming manual procedures.

To help ensure maximum network uptime, AI-Scripts are installed on devices which then automatically detect and report incidents to Service Now. When an event, such as a process crash, an ASIC error, or a fan failure, is detected in devices with AI-Scripts enabled, the AI-Scripts create files called Juniper Message Bundles (JMBs). JMBs contain comprehensive information about the device identity, the problem event, and diagnostics. This information is securely transferred to the Junos Space platform. Service Now will then notify users of the new incident by sending an email or an snmp trap. In addition to reporting incidents, AI-Scripts also send device information regularly in the form of Information Juniper Message Bundles (iJMBs). In Service Now, JMB errors could be JMBs that do not comply with the standard data structure that is expected by Service Now or could contain unexpected data elements. Service Now identifies these JMBs and displays them on the JMB Errors page where they can be viewed and downloaded.

After reviewing information provided in the JMB, you can submit the incidents to the Juniper Support Systems (JSS) to create a Juniper Technical Assistance Center (JTAC) case. The cases are processed and analyzed to provide preventive analysis and alerts. And using Service Now you can track the status of the case. To restrict the amount of information you share with Juniper Networks, you can filter configuration content from iJMBs before submission.

Apart from submitting JMBs to obtain resolution, Service Now also allows you to perform tasks like assigning an owner (user), flagging users to keep them notified of changes that are made, updating incident status, and also deleting JMBs from the Service Now database. The data in incidents and information messages can also be exported into different file formats like HTML, CSV and excel, and saved on the local file system. In order to receive notifications from Service Now you can set up notification policies that notify users that need to be kept informed of changes that affect them.

To add multiple devices and organizations you need to obtain a Technical Support contract with the right level of service. And once you have a valid contract, you can submit incidents and iJMBs to JSS for support. Without a valid contract, Service Now runs in the demo mode and supports one organization and five devices for sixty days. In this mode, you can not open technical support cases with JTAC and the connection status to JSS will fail.

To open technical support cases and share iJMBs with Juniper Networks, you must first set up an organization in Service Now. An organization represents a unique Clarify site ID in JSS that is used to identify customers while providing technical support. After creating an organization, you can test its connectivity with JSS and even set the submission of incidents as test cases. If you are a Juniper Networks partner or a direct customer with multiple distinct networks, you can use multiple Service Now organizations to keep customers or networks separate.

Grouping of network elements and managing multiple devices as a single entity is made possible by Service Now device groups. Device groups are used to group devices within an organization. By associating an organization with one or more device groups, you can maintain groups of devices with similar attributes or uses. Device groups also help you control which users have access to which Service Now devices. After you add devices and create device groups, you can perform various operations on them such as installing or uninstalling AI-Scripts individually on every device or on all the devices in a device group at once. You can even edit their parameters and delete them from the Service Now database.

In addition to monitoring and managing devices, organizations, and device groups, you can incorporate the use of SNMP and proxy servers. SNMP servers act as the destinations where traps are sent when a notification policy is triggered. And configuring Service Now to work with a proxy server facilitates all communication to and from JSS to happen through the proxy server ensuring secure transactions.

The Service Now application icon appears in Application Chooser as follows:

Mousing over the application icon displays a brief description about Service Now. Clicking the icon displays the Service Now dashboard which includes the gadgets and the workspaces with which the user can perform tasks. For more information about the Service Now dashboard and icons, see Service Now Dashboard Overview and Service Now Icons.

With different Service Now user privileges, the following tasks can be performed:

• Add devices to Service Now from the Junos Space platform.
• Add or delete a script bundle.
• Install or uninstall AI-Scripts on devices.
• Add, modify, or delete devices and device groups.
• Associate devices to device groups.
• Add, modify, or delete an organization.
• Submit incidents as test cases.
• Test organization connectivity to JSS.
• Export device data in CSV and Excel formats.
• Configure the global settings (SNMP server and proxy server settings).
• View service contract details.
• Assign an owner, flag to users, update status of incidents, and delete incidents.
• View and delete iJMBs, and export device data into HTML format.
• Assign an owner, flag to users, and delete an information message.
• View, download, and delete JMBs with errors.
• Create, edit, and delete a notification policy.