ServiceNow Inventory Connector

FlexNet Manager Suite 2021 R1 (On-Premises)

Separately from the sharing of information about contracts and assets described in the previous section, it is also possible to use ServiceNow as an inventory source, importing data to help in your software asset management and, in particular, license consumption calculations. To do this, you need to configure an inventory connector to collect and import the additional information.

This inventory connector is quite different and separate from the "ServiceNow Integration" discussed in ServiceNow Integration with FlexNet Manager Suite (and its following topics). It is quite possible to run both kinds of data exchange within the same overall implementation, but it is very helpful to keep the concepts clearly separated. The key differences are:
Functionality SN Inventory Connector SN Integration

Data flow

From ServiceNow into FlexNet Manager Suite

Bi-directional

Data type

Hardware and raw software inventory

  • Computer, normalized application data, and contract records into ServiceNow
  • Asset and contract records into FlexNet Manager Suite
Data app Flexera Integration, from the ServiceNow Store (common app) Flexera Integration, from the ServiceNow Store (common app)

Data import

Simple inventory connector

Two business adapters are required for the imports into FlexNet Manager Suite.

Limitations

ServiceNow is not currently strong in collecting inventory from (or, in ServiceNow terminology, "discovery of") partitioning technologies that provide virtualization on several UNIX-like platforms. If you are supporting these platforms, best practice is to install the FlexNet inventory agent locally on them, reporting directly to your inventory beacon(s), thereby allowing collection of all details needed for your license consumption calculations. This additional information integrates smoothly with the information collected from ServiceNow, with details collected by FlexNet inventory agent taking precedence.

Because the ServiceNow inventory connector is strictly an importer of inventory discovered by ServiceNow, it can be conveniently implemented on an instance of ServiceNow already running the Flexera Integration application for integration with a separate Flexera tool that exports data to ServiceNow. The limitation is that only one of these exporting tools (IT Visibility, Data Platform, or the FlexNet Manager Suite integration for contracts and assets as described in the previous section) may be implemented at one time on the same instance of ServiceNow. However, once you have selected just one of these exporting tools, it can operate in parallel with the ServiceNow inventory connector described in this section.

What you will find

This section includes the following chapters:
  • ServiceNow Inventory Connector covering all prerequisites and the architecture that underlies the use of the connector.
  • Setting up ServiceNow for the Inventory Connector provides details on all the setup required on the ServiceNow side to prepare the inventory information for collection by the inventory connector. Many of these detail are very similar to those described for ServiceNow configuration in the previous part; and if you are configuring both kinds of integration, you only need the ServiceNow configuration done once. Details are repeated (and fine tuned) in this section for those choosing to implement only the inventory connector.
  • Configuring the Inventory Connector on the Beacon covers the FlexNet Manager Suite side of the inventory connector. Again, this is familiar territory for those who have set up several connectors; but details are provided here again for those not yet practised in this area.
  • Technical appendices for this section give details of the data mapping on both sides of the inventory connector.

FlexNet Manager Suite (On-Premises)

2021 R1