Enable service maps using service meshes

  • Release version: Australia
  • Updated March 12, 2026
  • 1 minute to read

    • Enable application service maps based on the traffic between the workloads in Kubernetes by using Istio or Linkerd or service meshes as part of Kubernetes Visibility Agent (KVA) installation.

    Before you begin

    You must have a Prometheus server and provide the Prometheus URL.

    Role required: discovery_admin.

    About this task

    If you use a service mesh, a pod running on every node (Informer) communicates with a Prometheus server to get the traffic information. For more information, see Install Kubernetes Visibility Agent (KVA) Informer

    Procedure

    Set parameters either during Helm chart archive installation or by modifying the Kubernetes YAML file provided by ServiceNow.
    MethodActions
    During Helm installation
    In the Helm install command, add the following parameter:
    --set connectionsDiscovery.method=<METHOD>
    where <METHOD> is the URL for either Istio (http://prometheus.istio-system:9090) or Linkerd (http://prometheus.linkerd-viz:9090).
    Note:
    If your Prometheus server URL is not the default one, use the following parameter:
    --set connectionsDiscovery.prometheusUrl
    Modify the k8s_informer.yaml script
    1. Access the k8s_informer.yaml script.
    2. Set the environment variable k8s_informer.yaml by entering either Istio or Linkerd in quotation marks: 
      -- name: GET_CONNECTIONS_METHOD value: ""
    3. Run the following command:
      kubectl apply -f k8s_informer.yaml

    What to do next

    Create application service maps