HOT TAKE: ServiceNow Cloud Observability from Knowledge23

By Andy Thurai

ServiceNow made some notable announcements at the Knowledge23 conference. They are especially revamping their observability (o11y) solution to be competitive against other major players. This blog post analyzes some of the ServiceNow announcements. ServiceNow made some notable announcements at the Knowledge23 conference. They are especially revamping their observability (o11y) solution to be competitive against other major players. This blog post analyzes some of the ServiceNow announcements.

Few observations from the ServiceNow Cloud Observability announcements

1. The first noticeable item is that ServiceNow is getting rid of the Lightstep brand. While the acquisition itself was very good, the customer base was getting confused between ServiceNow offerings including their AIOps solution and Lightstep observability solutions. This naming convention avoids that issue.
2. ServiceNow combined Lightstep, Otel connectors, and Era software finally all into a single unified platform which is named ServiceNow Cloud Observability. My earlier writeup and analysis of Era Software by ServiceNow can be seen here.
3. Another notable change is their pricing model, the basic level which is included in the NOW platform is available at no additional cost whereas the cloud visibility entitlement is offered at an additional cost. ServiceNow also changed the pricing model slightly to price it based on the volume of data sent to the cloud observability platform instead of the user licenses. There is a starter version called "community" available for free. Full pricing and details can be seen here -https://lightstep.com/pricing
4. One of the two big functional additions is the OTEL integration. Instead of needing proprietary Lightstep integrations which was the case earlier, they moved to directly integrate with Otel protocol (OTLP) for Logs, Metrics, and traces. This enables them to offer attractive integrations to cloud-native apps for the new breed of customers instead of a long drawn-out integration. This can offer the ServiceNow classic workflows which were robust and have been around for years.
5. The second big functional addition, called Service Graph Connector for OTel, is that the new offerings pull information from cloud-native applications such as K8 objects and service mapping using telemetry data into CMDB. This allows users to understand the impact of planned/unplanned changes via topology maps.
6. One of the roadmap items, topology maps that span across cloud and traditional environments can be very compelling for hybrid enterprises.
7. The two levels of entitlement are a basic level which can provide visibility into K8 apps and K8 objects for ITOM and the added cloud visibility entitlement can provide event management, and AIOps functions on top of that basic functionality.

Constellation Analysis

1. Observability when fully integrated with ServiceNow workflows can be very compelling for legacy customers who are launching cloud-native apps yet want to have a look and feel of their existing ServiceNow platform.
2. This is offered as an upsell on renewal to the existing customers. I would have preferred to see them giveaway initially and change the pricing model to create more traction for the observability platform.
3. While the cloud native agentless app discovery, Otel integration, and open telemetry are all cool additions, the ServiceNow platform and the service maps are still based on their CMDB which will stay. A few customers expressed the platform has become large and a bit clunky for their taste.
4. ServiceNow is going after existing customers to enable them with cloud observability which means they are going after existing legacy customers instead of trying to grow the cloud-first/cloud-only customers that the Lightstep brand is known to attract. This could either work out very well or backfire with that new breed of customers moving elsewhere.
5. Sad to see the Lightstep brand sunset, hope the spirit lives on!

Bottomline: (for customers)

1. 1. For those legacy customers, who are using the ServiceNow platform, this is a no-brainer add-on. It is at least worth a POC, as the OTEL integration brings in the Open Telemetry based logs, metrics, and traces. This will integrate cloud-native applications into the existing platform with ease.
   2. CMDB and service maps can have cloud-native topology maps by discerning the information from telemetry information without a need to do long cycle integration. Bringing cloud-native topology into CMDB will be a big win for legacy customers rather than having many disconnected tools.
   3. Incident management and incident response become easier to do root causes analysis and service ticket creation from the same tool. Especially the roadmap item, hybrid topology maps make this more attractive for the customers who maintain composable solution that spans across on-prem and cloud locations.