Exploring DevOps Config
Summarize
Summary of Exploring DevOps Config
DevOps Config provides a centralized platform for storing, managing, and validating configuration data as a single source of truth. It enables ServiceNow customers to detect configuration drifts, perform root cause analysis of configuration-related outages, and resolve conflicts by comparing current and past config states. Although supported, DevOps Config is being deprecated starting with the Washington D.C. release and will no longer be activated on new instances.
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Key Features
- Single Source of Truth: Consolidates configuration data from multiple sources with role-based access control, ensuring secure and centralized management.
- Validation Before Deployment: Automatically validates configuration data against policy frameworks before deployment to prevent non-compliant or risky changes.
- Policy-Driven Compliance: Supports generic and customizable policies via the DevOps Config Policy content pack to enforce standards.
- Integration with CI/CD Pipelines: Allows automated gates to block deployments if configuration changes fail validation, supporting faster and safer releases.
- Configuration Drift Detection: Helps identify unintended changes by comparing snapshots of configuration data over time, facilitating rollback when necessary.
- DevOps Config API: Enables DevOps engineers to manage and validate configuration data programmatically.
- Application Modeling: When creating an app in DevOps Config, it links configuration data with other ServiceNow products like DevOps Change Velocity for enhanced visibility.
- Powered by CDM and PaCE: Utilizes Configuration Data Management and Policy as Code Engine for efficient data and policy handling.
Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers
- Improved Release Velocity: DevOps teams can deploy faster while ensuring that production environments remain stable and compliant.
- Risk Mitigation: Early detection and prevention of risky or non-compliant configuration changes reduce outages and alerts.
- Seamless Integration: Works with existing toolsets and workflows without requiring new tools or changing processes.
- Enhanced Governance: Role-based access and policy enforcement secure configuration data across the organization.
Next Steps
ServiceNow customers should consider leveraging DevOps Config to centralize and validate their configuration data, integrate it with their CI/CD pipelines for automated compliance checks, and use its capabilities for root cause analysis and rollback to maintain configuration integrity. However, they should also be aware of its upcoming deprecation in future releases and plan accordingly.
Use DevOps Config to store and manage all of your config data as a single source of truth. You can also use DevOps Config to validate your config data before deployment, and resolve conflicts in deployed config data.
Watch this short video to see how config data snapshots in DevOps Config can help you identify issues caused by unintended config data changes.
Use root cause analysis of configuration-related outages or alerts to quickly identify and resolve unintended config data changes, also known as configuration "drift." Compare current and past versions of intended config data changes attached to change requests, and roll back to the desired state when needed.
For more information, see Investigate an alert that involves a change to config data.
Manage your configuration data
DevOps Config becomes the single source of truth for your configuration data, rather than the source tool. A consolidated model manages and secures config data across multiple sources with role-based access control.
Although DevOps Config prevents non-compliant changes by validating your configuration data before deployment, security of the configuration data can't be enforced if the data is kept at the source and not stored in DevOps Config.
- Workflow
DevOps Config manages all your data in one location, validates it as it's written, and exports, when needed.
- DevOps Engineer persona
Use DevOps Config and DevOps Config API to manage and validate configuration data. Thus, enabling DevOps teams to release at a faster speed, ensuring that no risky or non-compliant changes are introduced in production.
Use automated gates in a CI/CD pipeline or deployment script so that a deployment is stopped if any change to the application or infrastructure configuration is deemed risky or non-compliant.
Manage DevOps Config as more policies are added and more exporters are defined.
Validate your configuration data
DevOps Config acts as a test tool by automatically validating your configuration data before deployment to prevent non-compliant changes, while ensuring adherence to policy frameworks.
Validation before deployment occurs by executing policies on the configuration data. The DevOps Config Policy content pack includes generic policies that check for standard issues, but can be customized based on use case.
- Workflow
When configuration data is changed or added, DevOps Config runs policies on the configuration data that's stored across multiple sources, validates it, and returns the outcome.
In the pipeline, the decision on whether to deploy is made, and the configuration data is retrieved from the source (Git, for example) to deploy.
- App Engineer (or IT infrastructure owner) persona
Use DevOps Config to validate configuration data. Thus, making sure no risks are introduced and that all changes are compliant with company policies before any changes are applied in a production environment.
Since the tool integrates with the existing toolset, there's no change to the way work is done and there are no new tools to learn. Changes made to configuration data are validated in the background, and when the outcome is reported, action can be taken.