Manually creating and reviewing your network asset instances

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated August 1, 2024
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Manually creating and reviewing your network asset instances

    The Network Inventory Workspace in the Telecommunications Network Inventory application allows you to manually create and review detailed digital models of your network assets. This capability supports provisioning new services, modifying existing services, maintaining the network, and planning for future network growth by accurately reflecting your physical and logical network components.

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    You can access forms directly from the workspace landing page and lists view to create instances of various network assets and define their relationships. While manual creation is available, automated methods also exist for more efficient asset instantiation.

    Key Features

    • Network Site Records: Create and manage location-specific data including network centers, buildings, floors, and rooms where equipment resides.
    • Telecommunications Equipment Instances: Define individual pieces of network equipment to track and manage assets effectively.
    • Equipment Holders: Specify cabinets, racks, shelves, and slots that physically contain network equipment.
    • Interface Cards and Network Interfaces: Create and maintain records for interface cards and network interfaces, including signaling and management functions.
    • Physical and Logical Connections: Define connections between network assets including cables, strands, physical port connections, and logical (virtual) port connections.
    • Network Topology: Manually create topology records to visualize the organization and interconnections of network elements.
    • Inventory Groups: Group configuration items (CIs) to collectively apply actions across multiple assets.
    • Decommissioning: Remove obsolete or retired inventory records from the system to keep your network inventory current.

    Practical Application for ServiceNow Customers

    By manually creating and reviewing network asset instances, you gain precise control and visibility over your telecommunications network inventory. This enables you to:

    • Maintain an accurate digital representation of your network’s physical and logical components.
    • Effectively manage network equipment lifecycle, locations, and configurations.
    • Visualize network topology for better planning and troubleshooting.
    • Group assets for streamlined management and bulk operations.
    • Ensure that your network records reflect real-world changes through regular updates and decommissioning.

    This manual approach complements automated methods, giving you flexibility to choose the best process for your organization's needs.

    A key function that you can perform in the network inventory workspace is to manually create your network assets and a digital model of your network in the Telecommunications Network Inventory application. With this information, you can provision new services, modify existing services, maintain the network, and plan the forecast for your network growth.

    To manually create and to review your individual network inventory records, and define the relationships between each asset, you can easily access the appropriate forms from the workspace landing page. For example, you can select the Interface cards count in the Network entities by categories widget on the Network Inventory Workspace landing page to create an interface card instance.

    Note:
    As an alternative to manually creating individual network asset instances, you can instead use a more automated, and potentially less labor-intensive method to do so. To learn more, see the following:

    Process

    To manually create a comprehensive digital model of your telecommunications network, access the following forms from the Network Inventory Workspace landing page and the Lists view. To learn more, see Reviewing and updating your network inventory with the Network Inventory Workspace.
    1. In the Network Site form, create the network site records for the individual locations that house your network equipment. To learn more, see 441ee506626159b7c5417e0ee54287e0a1c8c455.dita.
    2. In the Telco Equipment form, create the individual network asset instances for your telecommunications equipment. To learn more, see c92a65ff57ea7f6bda53d70b35b8ffa57e0ab9ba.dita.
    3. In the Equipment Holder form, create the individual network asset instances for your equipment holders. To learn more, see 32237a1ef03954c4f477c14451453376a9382db2.dita.
    4. In the Interface Cards form, create the individual network asset instances for your interface cards. To learn more, see Define the card details.
    5. In the Network Interface form, create the individual network asset instances for your network interfaces. To learn more, see Define the network interface details.
    6. In the Physical connection form, create the individual network asset instances for each physical or wired connection. To learn more, see Define the physical connection details.
    7. In the Logical connection form, create the individual network asset instances for each logical connection. To learn more, see Define the logical connection details.
    8. Create the logical and physical relationships between each asset in your network inventory.
    9. Define the numbering for your virtual local-area network (VLAN) or link aggregation group (LAG) connections in the Telecommunications Network Inventory application. To learn more, see Define your inventory numbering.