Resource Profiles

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated August 1, 2024
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Resource Profiles

    Resource profiles in ServiceNow Cloud Provisioning and Governance provide cloud provider-agnostic definitions that control the allowable attribute values for cloud resources. They streamline cloud resource requests by presenting predefined options to users, eliminating the need to create unique blueprints for every resource variation. This improves consistency and simplifies user selections when provisioning resources across multiple cloud providers.

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    Key Features

    • Cloud Provider Agnostic Profiles: Resource profiles work across different cloud providers, allowing consistent resource definitions.
    • Resource Profile Mappings: Profiles link cloud accounts, logical datacenters, specific CMDB resource types, and optionally pricing values to simplify resource provisioning.
    • Resource Types and Attributes: Profiles are categorized by resource type, each with relevant attributes discovered from cloud accounts:
      • Application Profile: Defines software to install on new resources, integrates with configuration management tools like Ansible.
      • Compute Profile: Specifies hardware characteristics (CPU, memory, storage) for virtual machines.
      • Compute Security Group Profile: Applies firewall and security rules to new resources.
      • OS Profile: Defines operating system images and installation scripts; provider-agnostic and reusable across accounts.
      • Schedule Profile: Sets operational schedules for resources, such as start/stop times.
    • Provider-Specific Integrations: AWS and Azure profiles are automatically mapped to templates after Discovery; other providers, like Google Cloud, require manual mapping.
    • Public Images Integration: Supports adding AWS and Azure public images to OS profiles to broaden available options.

    Practical Implementation

    • Create application, compute, security group, OS, and schedule profiles by mapping them to appropriate cloud accounts, datacenters, templates, and scripts.
    • Add credentials to image templates to ensure all provisioned VMs inherit necessary access information.
    • Leverage these profiles to present simplified, consistent options to users when requesting cloud resources, reducing manual input and errors.
    • Discover datacenters on-demand to keep cloud account mappings current.

    Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    By using resource profiles, customers can efficiently manage cloud resource provisioning with standardized configurations across multiple cloud providers. This approach reduces complexity for users requesting resources, ensures compliance with organizational standards, and facilitates governance by controlling available resource attributes and schedules.

    Resource profiles are cloud provider-agnostic definitions that specify the allowed attribute values for a resource. Resource profiles enable you to control the choices that the user sees when requesting a cloud resource. As a result, you do not need to define a unique blueprint for each variation of the resource.

    Note:
    In addition to the cloud-agnostic profiles, you can add provider public images to the Cloud Provisioning and Governance catalog. See Add an AWS public image to Cloud Provisioning and Governance and Add an Azure public image to Cloud Provisioning and Governance.

    Example: Compute profile

    You might create a compute profile named Micro and map it to a "micro" hardware type, with specified values for memory and CPU. Later, when a user selects a compute resource while requesting a virtual server, Micro appears as an option in the list of available compute resources. The user does not need to specify values for memory and CPU — the values come from the profile.
    Figure 1. Compute profile on the request form
    Compute profile on the request form

    Resource Profile mappings

    Resource profiles create mapping associations between the following items:
    • A cloud account.
    • A logical datacenter in the cloud account.
    • A specific resource type in the CMDB that provides the attributes.
    • Optional: A pricing value that appears to users when they request a resource that uses the resource profile.

    By default for AWS and Azure, Cloud Provisioning and Governance maps profiles to templates after Discovery runs. For other providers, such as Google cloud, you must manually associate the profile with the correct template and datacenter.

    Resource types

    Each resource profile has associated attributes. The attributes depend on the resource types that are populated after you run Discovery on a cloud account.
    Resource profile type Description and attributes Resource type and template
    Application profile An application profile specifies application software to install on newly-provisioned resources. Users can select applications when they request a stack. Use application profiles when you integrate with configuration management (continuous delivery) providers such as Ansible playbooks.

    Attributes: Applications running on virtual machines.

    		 Application Template

    [sn_cmp_application_template]
    Compute profile A compute profile specifies the hardware to use for newly-provisioned virtual machines.

    Attributes: The size of computing resources, including the virtual CPUs, memory, and local storage.

    		 Hardware Type

    [cmdb_ci_compute_template]
    Compute Security Group profile A compute security group profile applies specified security rules to newly-provisioned resources. You map a compute security group profile to a cloud account, a datacenter, a Compute Security Group template, and security rules for the template.

    Attributes: Firewall rules, such as enabling HTTP and HTTPS.

    Compute Security Group Template

    [cmdb_ci_security_grp_template]
    OS profile An OS profile installs a specified image on a newly-provisioned virtual machine. You map an OS profile to a cloud account, a location (datacenter), an image template, and a cloud script.

    Attributes: Operating system images, including the OS type and version, the root device type, and the image source.

    		 Image

    [cmdb_ci_os_template]
    Schedule profile You map a schedule profile to an instance schedule. The schedule profile applies to all newly-provisioned resources that use the profile. For example, a schedule profile can specify the days of the week and times of day when a stack should start and stop.

    Attributes: Schedule attributes such as when a stack should be started, stopped, or deprovisioned.

    		 N/A