Resource Profiles

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated January 30, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Resource Profiles

    Resource profiles in ServiceNow are cloud provider-agnostic definitions that specify allowed attribute values for cloud resources. They enable administrators to control what options users see when requesting cloud resources, eliminating the need to create unique blueprints for every resource variation. Resource profiles streamline resource provisioning by mapping to cloud accounts, datacenters, and specific resource types in the CMDB, optionally including pricing information.

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    These profiles support multiple resource types such as compute, OS images, security groups, applications, and schedules, providing a flexible and consistent framework across different cloud providers like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud.

    Key Features

    • Cloud Provider-Agnostic Profiles: Define resource attributes independent of cloud providers, simplifying management across multi-cloud environments.
    • Resource Profile Mappings: Map profiles to cloud accounts, logical datacenters, resource types, and optionally pricing values to control user selections during provisioning.
    • Multiple Resource Profile Types:
      • Application Profile: Specify application software (e.g., Ansible playbooks) to install on newly provisioned resources.
      • Compute Profile: Define hardware specifications including CPU, memory, and storage for virtual machines.
      • Compute Security Group Profile: Apply firewall and security rules to new resources.
      • OS Profile: Install specified operating system images on VMs; these profiles are reusable across multiple cloud accounts.
      • Schedule Profile: Automate start/stop/deprovision schedules for resources.
    • Integration With Cloud Provisioning and Governance: Supports adding public images from AWS and Azure to the catalog for OS profiles.
    • Discovery Integration: For AWS and Azure, profiles are mapped automatically to templates after cloud Discovery; for other providers, mapping is manual.

    Practical Use for ServiceNow Customers

    • Create and manage resource profiles to control and simplify user requests for cloud resources, ensuring consistency and compliance with organizational standards.
    • Leverage compute profiles to provide predefined hardware options, reducing user input and errors during virtual machine provisioning.
    • Use OS profiles to standardize operating system images across multiple cloud accounts, simplifying image management.
    • Apply security group profiles to enforce network security policies automatically upon resource creation.
    • Implement schedule profiles to optimize resource usage and cost by automating resource uptime.
    • Enhance provisioning catalogs by adding public cloud images from AWS and Azure, broadening user choice while maintaining governance.

    Next Steps

    • Define and create the necessary application, compute, security group, OS, and schedule profiles according to your organizational cloud resource requirements.
    • Map profiles appropriately to cloud accounts, datacenters, and templates to enable accurate provisioning options.
    • Integrate with cloud Discovery to automatically map profiles where supported, or configure mappings manually for providers like Google Cloud.
    • Add credentials to image templates to ensure provisioned VMs inherit necessary access details.
    • Consider adding public cloud images to your provisioning catalog to expand available OS options.

    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