--- sourceDocument: Yokohama IT Operations Management sourceDocumentLink: https://servicenow-prod.fluidtopics.net/r/yokohama/it-operations-management Release : - yokohama ft:locale : - en-US ft:publication_title : - Yokohama IT Operations Management ft:clusterId : - itom bundleId : - itom workflow : - Technology --- # Exploring Service Mapping # Exploring Service Mapping {#ariaid-title1} * Release version: Yokohama * * Updated January 30, 2025 * * ![](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/portal-asset/ico-clock) 3 minutes to read Summarize ![AI sparkle icon](https://servicenow.com/docs/portal-asset/ai-sparkle-icon) Summarized using AI This content was generated using new OpenAI-powered functionality. Results are provided on an as is basis and are not guaranteed to be accurate or complete. ## Summary of Exploring Service Mapping Service Mapping in ServiceNow discovers all service instances within your organization and builds detailed maps of related devices, applications, and configuration profiles. It provides IT departments and cloud platform providers with a service-aware infrastructure view, revealing how interconnected components form complete service instances. This capability surpasses traditional horizontal discovery by using top-down mapping to visualize dependencies and connections between infrastructure elements, enabling better impact analysis and service health monitoring. Show full answer Show less ## How Service Mapping Works Service Mapping primarily uses **patterns** ---sequences of operations to detect device and application attributes and their connections---to discover and map application services. Other methods include **tag-based mapping** , which leverages existing asset tags, and **traffic-based mapping**, which follows network traffic between components. This flexibility allows alignment with your organization's asset management and discovery strategies. Service Mapping depends on the Discovery product and MID Server for accessing and communicating with devices and applications. It continuously regenerates service maps to keep them current and highlights faulty components alongside affected services for proactive troubleshooting. ## Practical Use and Benefits * Enables IT teams to understand and visualize dependencies within internal or customer-facing services, such as web applications or email systems. * Supports impact analysis by showing how faults in one component affect the overall service. * Integrates with Event Management for event visibility and remediation actions, Dependency Views for relationship visualization, and Application Portfolio Management (APM) to monitor business application performance. * Supports domain separation, ensuring users and administrators see only the services relevant to their domain, enhancing security and management. ## Preconditions and Configuration To use Service Mapping, the Discovery product must be activated and properly configured, including defining users and credentials for accessing networked devices and applications. Proper setup ensures seamless data collection and mapping accuracy. ## Additional Features * **Tag-based mapping dashboard:** Provides an intuitive interface in the Service Mapping Workspace to manage and create tag-based services efficiently through widgets and visualizations. * **Traversal rules:** Define relationships between configuration items to create comprehensive and accurate application service maps. * **Cloud environment support:** Service Mapping extends visibility into application dependencies within cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) environments, aiding better service management in hybrid or cloud-first organizations. ## What to Expect By implementing Service Mapping, your organization gains a dynamic, service-aware infrastructure model that improves understanding of complex service dependencies, accelerates root cause analysis, and enhances service reliability. It also integrates with broader IT Operations Management capabilities to support proactive service monitoring and performance optimization. Service Mapping discovers all service instances in your organization and builds a comprehensive map of all devices, applications, and configuration profiles used in these service instances.
This video provides an overview of Service Mapping on the ServiceNow AI Platform. ## Who uses Service Mapping {#service-mapping-get-started__section_htc_yzd_x1b} Service Mapping enables IT departments of companies, organizations, and cloud companies providing platform as a service to create a service-aware view of infrastructure. ## How do you use Service Mapping {#service-mapping-get-started__section_et2_zzd_x1b} A service instance is a set of interconnected applications and hosts that are configured to offer a service to the organization. Service instances can be internal, like an organization email system or customer-facing, like an organization website. For example, creating financial reports through a web-based application requires a computer, web server, application server, databases, middleware, and network infrastructure. These applications and hosts are all configured to offer the service of financial reporting. Typically, IT departments create and maintain an inventory that treats devices and applications as standalone, independent objects. Connections between the devices and applications are not included. This is usually referred to as horizontal discovery. This method does not address the biggest challenge for IT departments, which is understanding the connection and dependencies between each object. Service Mapping maps dependencies, based on a connection between devices and applications. This method is referred to as top-down mapping. The top-down mapping helps you immediately see the impact of a problematic object on the rest of the service instance operation. Figure 1. Comparison of horizontal and top-down mapping results Service instance maps show infrastructure objects and semantic connections between them. Service Mapping regenerates service instance maps regularly, to keep them updated and relevant. Any faulty objects are shown along with the devices and applications they affect, providing a visual clue of the state of the service instance. ## How does Service Mapping work {#service-mapping-get-started__section_gvv_11t_cbb} Service Mapping can deploy different methods for creating application services. The main method of Service Mapping discovering and mapping devices and applications is using patterns. A pattern is a sequence of operations whose purpose is to detect attributes of devices and applications and their outbound connections. If your organization uses tags for asset management, you can use these tags to map service instances. Service Mapping can also discover devices and applications by following traffic connections between them. This method is referred to as traffic-based mapping. For more information, see [Choose the right method for discovery and mapping application services](https://servicenow-prod.fluidtopics.net/oqkGxCqQ7VwkBp~TSxM10Q "Service Mapping deploys different methods for collecting information about configuration items (CIs) and organizing them into application services. The available mapping methods are: pattern-based, tag-based, traffic-based, and discovery based on Predictive Intelligence. Learn about the mapping methods to use the ones that best suit the needs of your organization."). ## What to know before you begin {#service-mapping-get-started__section_jqz_b12_x1b} You can use Service Mapping only if the Discovery product is activated and set up. You must define users and configure credentials to allow Service Mapping and Discovery access to applications and devices inside your organization network. For more information, see [Configuring Service Mapping](https://servicenow-prod.fluidtopics.net/6~Gv_u6nYAKwi5pxiDXHGg "You get started with Service Mapping by configuring roles, credentials, and MID Server connections."). ## Service Mapping on the ServiceNow AI Platform {#service-mapping-get-started__section_s2d_d12_x1b} Service Mapping relies on Discovery and the MID Server to discover devices and applications. Service Mapping uses results of horizontal discovery performed by Discovery. The MID Server facilitates communication between Service Mapping and devices and applications it discovers. Data collected and organized by Service Mapping is visible in Event Management, Dependency Views, and Application Portfolio Management (APM). With Event Management, you can view events to take actions for recovering your organization application services. Dependency Views shows relationships between devices and applications in the context of application services they belong to. When integrated with APM, Service Mapping provides information about components making up a business application and helps APM users to monitor business application performance. Service Mapping supports domain separation. If your ServiceNow AI Platform uses domain separation, administrators and users can only see and manage application services belonging to their own domain. To view a list of Service Mapping plugin dependencies, see [Plugins or applications installed with ITOM Visibility](https://servicenow-prod.fluidtopics.net/dgLPeaSg4KmSaaHdM52~gA "Tables that list the plugins or applications that are installed with ITOM Visibility applications. When you update your application, any newly required application dependencies are installed."). * **[Choose the right method for discovery and mapping application services](https://servicenow-prod.fluidtopics.net/oqkGxCqQ7VwkBp~TSxM10Q)** Service Mapping deploys different methods for collecting information about configuration items (CIs) and organizing them into application services. The available mapping methods are: pattern-based, tag-based, traffic-based, and discovery based on Predictive Intelligence. Learn about the mapping methods to use the ones that best suit the needs of your organization. * **../../../service-mapping-use-case.html** * **[Discovery of application services on cloud using Service Mapping](https://servicenow-prod.fluidtopics.net/aJbPWUfkrwPUx3pNU00zOQ)** Service Mapping in cloud environments provides critical visibility into application dependencies and connections. By identifying how different application components interact within IaaS and PaaS environments, your organization can gain better insight into its application services and improve overall service management. * **[Service Mapping flow](https://servicenow-prod.fluidtopics.net/ukMRxCumOnG~0WeM4dEqqg)** Learn about high-level tasks users having different roles perform in Service Mapping. * **[Tag-based mapping in the Service Mapping Workspace](https://servicenow-prod.fluidtopics.net/OFk5tbvt1_hfHGvMajDU6w)** The Tag-based service mapping dashboard offers an intuitive way to manage tag-based services. Use the widgets, data visualizations, and list navigation to review and update your services, or create new tag-based services in a few steps. The dashboard enhances the Service Mapping Workspace, offering an efficient and user-friendly interface for organizing and optimizing your service mappings. * **[Traversal rules in Service Mapping](https://servicenow-prod.fluidtopics.net/~ROXNytS7quE~_vWiD3rew)** Traversal rules identify and map relationships between configuration items to create comprehensive application service maps. They connect relevant configuration items based on predefined relationships, promoting accurate service mapping and visualization. **Related concepts** * [Event Management](https://servicenow-prod.fluidtopics.net/zV1qJfj5jTLYMm50~FD~Rw "ServiceNow Event Management is a robust application that helps keep your IT systems healthy by spotting problems quickly and fixing them. It collects events from different sources, figures out what's causing the issues, and converts them into alerts. These alerts are then analyzed, grouped, and acted upon to resolve issues and maintain system health.") **Related topics** * [Application services](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/access?context=application-services&version=yokohama&pubname=yokohama-servicenow-platform&ft:locale=en-US) * [Dependency Views](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/access?context=c_BusinesssServiceManagementMaps&version=yokohama&pubname=yokohama-servicenow-platform&ft:locale=en-US)