ITOM Content Service use case

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated January 30, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of ITOM Content Service use case

    The ITOM Content Service use case highlights how organizations can gain enhanced visibility into their IT environment by improving the management of Application Configuration Items (CIs). Application CIs are integral to the Common Service Data Model (CSDM) and support critical IT operations across Service Mapping, ITOM AIOps, IT Asset Management (ITAM), IT Service Management (ITSM), and Enterprise Architecture (EA).

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    Challenge

    Large organizations with numerous applications face difficulties in maintaining accurate discovery and visibility of application CIs. Existing ITOM Visibility methods such as Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns rely on predefined patterns to identify applications. However, many applications lack dedicated patterns, resulting in their processes being logged without creating corresponding CIs. This gap limits accurate infrastructure visibility and hampers essential activities like monitoring, automated upgrades, impact analysis, and security workflows.

    Solution

    ITOM Content Service enhances the discovery process by tagging and classifying process fingerprints directly, without relying on pattern-based classifiers. It identifies applications by capturing details about the publisher, product, and essential components, enabling continuous content delivery without dependency on scheduled releases. For example, processes like E3DBEngine.exe are tagged and classified, allowing Discovery to create CIs even when no pattern is triggered.

    Result

    Using ITOM Content Service, organizations achieve continuous and improved visibility into their application landscape by automatically creating CIs for all discovered applications. This enriched visibility supports more effective monitoring, proactive incident resolution, automated maintenance, and ongoing optimization of IT operations.

    This ITOM Content Service use case demonstrates how organizations can achieve enhanced visibility into their environment.

    Use case overview

    The Application Configuration Items (CIs) class is a key component of an organization’s data platform within the Common Service Data Model (CSDM). Application CIs help log software activities and support critical IT operations.

    Many products and applications rely on application CIs for essential tasks. A few key examples are:
    • Service Mapping: Uses application CIs to create service maps
    • ITOM AIOps: Monitors application health and resolves incidents using application CIs
    • IT Asset Management (ITAM): Tracks and manages software applications and their associated licenses with application CIs
    • IT Service Management (ITSM): Analyzes service impact and calculates blast radius with application CIs
    • Enterprise Architecture (EA): Leverages application CIs to generate business outcomes

    Challenge

    A large organization with numerous applications requires accurate discovery. Managing application CIs is essential, yet the IT team finds it challenging to maintain visibility over its growing infrastructure.

    ITOM Visibility offers several methods for discovering products within an organization’s infrastructure, such as Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns. This method provides detailed visibility into a product's information. When a wide range of applications is in use, not all can have a dedicated pattern. If an application does not have a dedicated pattern, discovery populates only the Running Process [cmdb_running_process] table without identifying the product or creating a CI for it.

    Without an application CI, the organization lacks accurate visibility into its infrastructure and might struggle to optimize the following essential actions:
    • Bind CIs with monitoring alerts and open incidents regarding the CIs
    • Schedule automated software upgrades
    • Automate scripts to optimize or troubleshoot the product
    • Perform impact assessments and change impact analysis
    • Create security workflows

    Solution

    ITOM Content Service enhances the discovery process by tagging and classifying process fingerprints. This service provides details about the publisher, product, and the essential component of the CI. Unlike pattern-based discovery, ITOM Content Service identifies applications directly within the organization’s environment without requiring published pattern classifiers. This approach enables the continuous delivery of content without being constrained by a scheduled release cycle.

    For example: Discovery identifies the Elipse Software E3 Database Engine process (E3DBEngine.exe) and lists it in the Running Process [cmdb_running_process] table. If the E3DBEngine.exe process classification condition isn’t set to trigger a pattern, it doesn't launch a pattern and a CI isn't created. However, with ITOM Content Service, the E3DBEngine.exe process is tagged and classified, enabling Discovery to turn the process into a CI during the next scan.

    Result

    Discovery using ITOM Content Service creates a CI record by tagging and classifying the publisher, product, and essential component for all applications in the organization’s environment. This method provides enhanced and continuous visibility into the application landscape, enabling effective monitoring, proactive actions, and ongoing optimization.