ServiceNow Discovery Reviews

We just have some use cases of discovering some products from the hotels that we support. For example, basic configuration items, assets, importing them, the servers, the data centers, and all that information to be stored in our system, building the CI relationship, etcetera. So, the basic needs of any organization.

It's a single source of truth. We have everything in one place. 

There is room for improvement in the licensing model. 

In future releases, I would like to see more AI-oriented enhancements in the solution. It would automate most of the things that we have to do manually write the scripts and go on the teleservice, what to do. So if we have something in place and if we can train the module, then AI would be a good thing.  

I have been using it for two years. 

It has been stable since deployment. 

It is not recommended for smaller companies because of the price. 

Everybody is using this ServiceNow tool in my company, so more than 150,000 end users.

The support serves all of ServiceNow products equally. So, the customers service and support are good and competent. 

There were a lot of things on the table, but we preferred the one that comes with ServiceNow. 

We opted for this solution because we liked the quality of the data that we needed inside. That's the only key difference that we found.

The implementation is not easy, but it completely depends on the need.

How we want, what we want to get, and what we want to store inside the tool. So it's completely based on the need, but it's not easy. It's a bit complex.

For now, we just have a team, a full team of 25  admins who are set off.

It is worth the money. 

It's pretty good. Again, the licensing is too much, but it's good. It does the job.

I would recommend using the solution. It's worth investing some money in it and trying to get the quality data inside the system. 

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

We used the product to manage our desktop assets. We were expanding it to use the rest of the technology assets. The technology assets would be populated from Tanium. It is an incredibly valuable tool for what we need.

The service management and operations management modules are valuable.

The product could improve some of the visualization and architecture setups.

My previous organization used the solution.

I rate the solution’s stability a ten out of ten.

I rate the product’s scalability a ten out of ten. When I left the organization, 75 people were using the solution.

The initial setup was relatively straightforward but required the organization to have its policies and core processes defined. For building it out, ServiceNow gave us a basic set of processes that we can employ. However, these processes, like any SaaS tool, rarely work out of the box and require modification in order to work for an organization’s culture and practices. I knew that, so I designed those myself. We were ahead of the game, but it would have been much more difficult if we had just assumed and tried to enable their out-of-the-box solution. It required internal work.

The initial deployment took less than five months. We used a hybrid method to implement the solution. We used a third party, and internally my NOC manager became my architect. He was also the one that became a developer of the system.

If the solution is deployed properly, it is highly valuable. If the product is not deployed properly, it can be very expensive.

We used ITSM and portions of ITOM. ITSM is for incident, problem, change, and knowledge management. We also built asset management modules. Specifically, we built that module for all the desktop services I was responsible for. We were building it out to support all of the IT technology assets. We also built a custom security solution within the system. We're also building our compliance and integrating it with our internal HR solution.

My goal was to move the organization from a lot of individual solutions for each business unit to one enterprise-level solution that managed issues, problems, and changes across the entire enterprise. We wanted the product from an infrastructure perspective and integrated it with HR and security. We hadn't yet integrated it with the application stacks up to the point that I had left. However, we established enterprise-level dashboards from the executive level down to the front lines to manage tickets related to issues and problems. We wanted to leverage data to analyze the biggest challenges we had and the improvements that we were making.

ServiceNow is an incredible tool if managed right. The value of the tool as long as it's utilized properly is incredible. It provides a one-stop shop for a lot of things. We used all the elements of ITSM. We worked through most of the issues, like process changes and stuff like that. We deployed and modified it. The teams I worked with were incredibly responsive. People investing in the product must map their processes and understand their data flows. It's incredibly important. The more the internal policy process and data flows are defined, the better and the easier the deployment is.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Primarily, we use Discovery to discover and maintain our CIs (Configuration Items). It also has the potential for subscription management, but we're not currently using it for that.

One of our key use cases is tracking laptops assigned to employees within our organization. We need to monitor their usage patterns and performance. We start by using Discovery to populate a database with details about computers, servers, and SNMPs. 

Then, we integrate with a third-party tool for monitoring. If issues arise, they raise a ticket in ServiceNow, allowing us to proactively address problems.

ServiceNow offers many other features with Discovery, but it takes time to learn and implement them effectively. We've started with out-of-the-box solutions, customized them to our needs, and are gradually upgrading our processes.

So, it does take some time for someone to learn Discovery, or any other ServiceNow product.

I also primarily work with ITSM modules like incident, problem, and change management. I also use IT Operations Management (ITOM) products like Discovery, Service Mapping, and Operations Management.

We use Discovery and Operations Management to manage our CIs. Additionally, we use incident, problem, change, and knowledge management for ITSM (IT Service Management). It's like a ticketing service.

Discovery patterns have helped identify and map our services more accurately. Discovery connects all the CIs (Configuration Items) together. 

In ServiceNow, there is something called a schema map that will show in which data center, what things are present, how many virtual agents are there, and how many people are working.

For example: Think of a scenario where my Wi-Fi in a specific area is not working – let's say Wi-Fi in D Block. Two employees from that block raise tickets saying that Wi-Fi is not working. Without a tool like Discovery, I don't know if the Wi-Fi access point is broken, if the service package has expired, or if there's a power issue.

So, I would check the subscription status of that Wi-Fi access point and send the support team there. They will resolve the issue. That way, everything is interconnected. Multiple people from the same router raising tickets means there is some problem with the router itself. That's how it helps.

The best thing about Discovery is maintaining all the CIs in one place. 

I can sort the data, export it to Excel for manipulation, and build reports like how many computers or servers we have and their capacity. 

ServiceNow also offers agentless Discovery, where we can see what software is installed on laptops. 

We can even run commands to discover all the software on a PC. This helps us see if users are missing any of our essential tools and services. That's a great thing about Discovery.

The initial setup could be made easier. We hired professionals to implement it, and they trained our employees for ongoing processes. 

The initial setup was done by experts, and then they prepared our team to handle common errors.

I'm relatively new to it. I've been using it for about a year. Before that, my focus was on ticketing services. 

In India, there's a higher demand for ticketing services within ServiceNow, so we don't get as many requirements for Discovery. With more clients using cloud services, we've started using Discovery in the last couple of years.

ServiceNow Discovery is very stable, but it depends on our infrastructure. Discovery uses a MID server, and if we allocate a good amount of resources, like 16GB of RAM and 500GB of space, it works well.

If you don't provide the minimum required resources, it can sometimes hang. But in our case, we had enough resources, so it ran smoothly. 

It might take some time – for a complete discovery, it can take six to seven hours – but that's still better than some other services.

We have a team of three to four people who monitor Discovery. We've set up a VPN for Discovery purposes, and all laptops are connected to it. We use usernames and passwords for the discovery process. 

Employees use the devices, but they might not be aware that Discovery is running in the background.

Our monitoring team will check if anything goes wrong. Discovery will generate tickets, and then they'll investigate and ask the help desk to resolve any technical issues.

The customer service and support people are pretty good. They will help you. If you have any problem, they'll provide a solution. That's a good thing about ServiceNow. But understand that they'll give you the solution, and you need to figure out how to implement it.

They suggested that we hire experts for the initial setup. ServiceNow has partner service providers listed on their website. You can hire someone from there for the initial configuration and then manage day-to-day tasks with your own support team. That's how we do it.

Before this, we didn't have a proper software setup. We used a different system, but it had issues. Sometimes we had laptops in storage without knowing, or we would buy new laptops and assign them to new hires when there were existing ones available. 

So the company was thinking of getting a new system. Since we were already using ServiceNow for ticketing services, we took a Discovery subscription and started using it.

We have both configurations, cloud and on-premises. We use AWS Cloud.

We hired professionals to implement it, and they trained our employees for ongoing processes.

ServiceNow have documentation, and it's good, but it can be difficult for a beginner to understand. If you're an expert, it's easier. 

We discussed this with the experts, and they confirmed that the documentation covers common problems and solutions. However, it takes some effort to dive deep into them and resolve issues.

ROI (Return on Investment) is good. ServiceNow don't disclose the price publicly. They'll assess your organization's needs and then come up with a price.

ServiceNow is expensive.

My recommendation depends on the organization and how big it is. If it is a large organization with thousands of laptops and many servers to monitor, then I would suggest going with ServiceNow. However, ServiceNow is costly.

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. It's a great tool, but there are two reasons for the slightly lower score. 

• First, there's a significant investment necessary to utilize Discovery effectively. 
• Second, it takes time to fully understand and leverage the tool. 

In our case, the deployment took three months. We had an expert for three months who analyzed our system, developed a solution, and then implemented it. This process is necessary, but it did take a significant amount of time.

I believe the tool itself isn't solely about identifying assets, as many tools can perform IP-based and port-based discovery. That's not the most challenging aspect; it's a well-established practice. The real value lies in how it integrates into a system that everyone can utilize, and it does so rapidly. I've been using it for quite some time, and it's not just about the tools; it's about the people, organizational processes, and how they contribute to the success of these tools.

ServiceNow's Discovery feature is quite significant because it allows for service mapping and integrates with VIN management. It involves adding a business context to servers, routers, switches, and data centers. This means understanding not only what's installed on these systems and how they function together but also recognizing their significance in terms of business applications from the business's perspective and how they impact business processes and capabilities. So when we delve into these aspects and connect them to the essential components, it can help you engage in more meaningful discussions to enhance capacity management practices. In essence, it contributes to the overall IT portfolio, almost functioning as a business platform. This platform is accessible to users who leverage the data to initiate incidents, implement changes, and resolve problems. Consequently, consolidating all configuration items or assets into a unified platform makes sense, especially considering you already have Discovery in place. If the cost is reasonable, the other two components might not provide much value, except for their user-friendliness, which is often less important to leaders compared to the desired outcomes.

I find it valuable to enhance IP address management. I've been in this field since around 2011, and my experience since then has revolved around automation, deployment, distribution, and comprehensive inventory management, all crucial for deploying various components, including patches. When we talk about patch management or vulnerability management, it's more complex than just applying patches; sometimes, you need to undergo significant upgrades or phase out old components for new ones, and this can turn into a substantial project, explaining why vulnerabilities persist.

Now, the role of ServiceNow Discovery and security operations, or at one point, looking at vulnerability management in ServiceNow Discovery, is crucial. It allows you to identify vulnerabilities on assets and, with the addition of discovery, service mapping, and event management, you gain a business context for these vulnerabilities. It's not merely about knowing they exist on a server; it's about understanding which services are responsible for critical business processes or transactions, like payroll. This knowledge changes the approach and execution of vulnerability remediation.

I have been using ServiceNow Discovery since the last couple years.

Based on my recent experiences, tech support has been somewhat challenging. It often feels like I need to take the lead and put in a lot of effort to resolve a case. There's quite a bit of groundwork and hand-holding involved.

Neutral

I've had experience with SCCM and Altiris in the past, which were agent-based tools. However, I haven't evaluated or explored ServiceNow Discovery yet. In terms of setup, it seems quite similar to me. The core focus is on managing these aspects effectively. Tenable does a similar job, but it lacks the ability to retrieve information on installed applications and application dependency mapping, which ServiceNow Discovery can provide.

I rate the overall solution a seven out of ten. 

My company tries to get information from the client network to populate CMDB more effectively with ServiceNow Discovery. ServiceNow Discovery is a much more reliable software or process that helps our company get more information about our network components.

ServiceNow has a very effective product offering named Discovery, which is a fairly easy-to-use and impactful tool. In our company, we don't find any hurdles when it comes to ServiceNow Discovery. ServiceNow Discovery is easy to implement, and its scalability features are quite easy to use. ServiceNow Discovery can scan networks very quickly and populate the CMDB very well without much programming requirements or effort. The tool is completely a low-code tool. All the other exercises that our company needs to do for an effective scan are quite easy with the solution. It is quite easy to understand ServiceNow Discovery.

On the patent side, my company faced some issues with ServiceNow Discovery. In the subsequent releases of the product, ServiceNow promptly addressed the patent-related issues in the tool.

More utilization of AI in ServiceNow Discovery can really help our company. Though it may be a very high-level area, I feel AI's functionalities can be leveraged effectively for ServiceNow Discovery. Instead of AI, even GenAI should be introduced in ServiceNow Discovery.

I have been using ServiceNow Discovery for six years.

The product provides great scalability features. When our company started with ServiceNow Discovery, I saw that from the client network, we issued a lot of payloads, and such a payload can be easily accommodated in ServiceNow. ServiceNow's ability to easily manage the big payloads we receive from the client network is a super feature or super offering from the solution that helps our company.

Three or four years back when I needed some support from ServiceNow's support team, I found them to be quite knowledgeable and wonderful since they really helped us and addressed our issues promptly. ServiceNow's support team is the best.

I rate the technical support a nine out of ten.

Positive

The solution is deployed on the cloud. The tool has very little scope if deployed on an on-premises model. Some companies have deployed the tool on an on-premises model, but our company works on the cloud-based version of the product.

The product can be deployed automatically on this cloud, so the whole process takes just a fraction of a second to complete.

Though I am not much involved in the pricing part, I know that it is a bit costly. As per a general discussion I had with the stakeholders, I figured out that it is a costly tool. There is a need to make additional payments apart from the licensing fees for better support services from ServiceNow.

I did not consider any other solutions in the market since my company heavily depends on ServiceNow. Even my company's clients have completely stretched the use of ServiceNow in all their processes, so my organization has to obviously go with ServiceNow Discovery for now.

In terms of the tool's integration within our company's IT environment, we often need to integrate with third parties to get clearer information about the CIs precisely. My company has integrated Microsoft Intune and other cloud networks into ServiceNow Discovery, and it really helped our company get relevant information about our CIs.

The tool definitely helps our company with asset management and compliance since it provides a deeper insight into the asset management part. Asset management covers not only hardware but also software assets. ServiceNow Discovery is really helpful in gaining more insight into software asset management as well as hardware assets. ServiceNow Discovery is quite helpful to address our company's IT asset management overall.

To make IT infrastructure management easier, ServiceNow Discovery offers scheduled management. Presently, you can automate the complete IT infrastructure management process in ServiceNow Discovery without the need for much human intervention, but you need to define your IP ranges so that the tool can scan the whole network and give a result. On top of the aforementioned functionalities, the tool's effective log management provided by ServiceNow really helps our company if we get stuck somewhere.

I recommend the product to others since it is a powerful tool and a solution that can be considered as the starting point of the other processes, especially if you want to implement software and hardware asset management effectively. For event management and service mapping, ServiceNow Discovery should be implemented initially.

I rate the tool a nine out of ten.

Discovery is predominantly used for predictive monitoring and auto self-healing to reduce manual work and automate remediation of IT incidents, problems, and changes. 

Discovery is foundational for knowing your infrastructure and application components and is key to building a foundation for achieving a target state.

The most important feature of ServiceNow Discovery is the Identification and Reconciliation Engine (IRE) rules. It makes sure of unique identification for each component, like an application or a database, and uploads it to the CMDB. This engine prevents duplicates or errors when importing data into the CMDB, which is a critical feature. So, it is a pretty fantastic feature. 

Discovery, while a bit pricey, integrates well with other tools and offers a centralized discovery solution. These aspects could be enhanced in the new release.

Currently, pricing is based on the number of nodes. Like whether you have under 50, under 100, or under 200 nodes. And if you're a gold or platinum partner, the prices vary depending on your relationship with ServiceNow. So, if they can offer very competitive pricing for customers, the use will probably increase. The adoption of Discovery by clients will increase.  

For better adoption, offering competitive pricing for customers would be beneficial.

I have been using this solution for three years now. 

We do a lot of discovery, discovering on-prem and cloud services into the CMDB, not just that, but server storage and other infrastructure and application components as well. We do a lot of work on the discovery side.

The stability is pretty solid because the CMDB is the foundation for IT service management and to work on all the upcoming technologies, including predictive healing and self-healing automation. So, it's pretty solid that way.

Overall, I would rate the stability a nine out of ten. 

The scalability of the discovery solution is solid. ServiceNow has had Discovery for a long time, so I'd rate it a nine out of ten.

Our clients are mostly enterprises for ServiceNow Discovery

I've raised some questions, and customer service and support were pretty prompt in responding to that.

Positive

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. The mid-server installation and user credentials are key, but it can take time to resolve duplicates and errors.

I would rate my experience with the initial setup an eight out of ten, where one is difficult, and ten is easy. 

We are mostly on the functional side, but I have architects and technical engineers for hands-on installation and everything else. Mostly, I'm part of the solutions, working with customers to tailor solutions to their needs.

The deployment process varies based on size and the number of configuration items. But with initial mid-server installation and user ID credentials, you can start in less than two weeks.

This is expensive, but it meets our needs, so some other clients, they would just go for Discovery because they have different expectations. Whether they want to go for IT service management or not, clients really want to know what they are using, because it impacts the billing directly. So they don't want to overcount the servers that they use, so, I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive. 

The licensing costs basically vary because if you are in an MSP model, then the prices are different. And if you're going for a separate purchase because what we technically do is we go through a reseller, and then we get the prices. So the prices are based on that. 

Discovery is definitely necessary. When it comes to discarding a few things that are not part of the network or when you're bringing in an application, 

Application is a logical thing because it's not a physical component. So I think you gotta pay more attention when you're bringing in all your application assets into the CMDB because everything has to be together for the other services to work.

So pay attention because the application is outside of Discovery, but how you do it is definitely necessary. So, trying to come up with creative means to bring your application assets and make sure it works into the CMDB would be the first option.

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

Primarily for discovering and managing organizational assets and tools. We maintain the hierarchy of all the assets, and if there are any issues, we can remotely configure them without any problems. So, it's useful for that purpose and a high-level overview.

There were various types of organizations, and we had three types of laptops. We could manage the different model numbers in a hierarchy, and the discovery helped us with IP ranges and network changes.

The most valuable feature is its integration with CMDB, as it collects all the data.

Another best feature for me is the ability to set up MID Serve remotely, which is a really nice addition. With MID Serve, we can do the configuration remotely, which saves us a lot of time and effort.

In my opinion, it's quite slow compared to other tools, like Device42. Also, there are predefined fields in Device42 that are not available in ServiceNow. These are the basic things I think can be improved here.

I have been using this solution for three to four months. 

It is stable and works reliably.

I'd rate the stability at around eight out of ten. It works here. But, there are some hiccups that can be encountered, similar to any other solution.  Overall, it's quite stable.

I would rate the scalability around eight out of ten. It's pretty good, especially considering that ServiceNow Discovery is using MariaDB, which enhances its scalability.

There are more than 15 users using this solution in our organization.

The support is good. The documentation was quite good, and the guided setup makes it extremely easy to use, provided you know the right steps, like creating a directory user, for example.

Positive

I would rate my experience with the initial setup a seven out of ten, with one being difficult and ten being easy to set up. 

We had a team of five to six people working on the deployment. Each person had specific skills required for different tasks, such as service mapping, network setup, and the actual discovery process. Having a diverse skill set in the team proved to be beneficial for completing the work quickly and efficiently.

At the basic level, it took me around a week. However, at the organization level, there were a lot of configurations to be edited, and extensive mapping was required. So, in total, the initial setup took around a month.

To start the deployment, we used a target set that can be installed in the MID Server. From the MID Server, we initiated the discovery process using IP ranges provided by the organization or obtained through their routers. This allowed us to discover all the Configuration Items (CIs). However, we encountered an issue with service mapping, which took some time to resolve.

I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, where one being cheap and ten being expensive. 

My advice would be to familiarize themselves with ServiceNow CMDBs and understand how the discovery process works. ServiceNow CMDB is a crucial table management tool for discovery needs. Also, considering the importance of CMDB health management, incorporating it into the usage would be beneficial.

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten.

ServiceNow Discovery is useful for discovering the servers, like the servers of Windows and Linux, from the client network.

Every single feature in every single version of ServiceNow Discovery has been valuable. The worthiness of a feature depends on our requirements. Every feature is unique, and every feature is important in the solution.

We can push some generative AI content to make ServiceNow Discovery more effective, but it's just a random thought. There are no particular use cases because of which the aforementioned changes need to be incorporated in ServiceNow Discovery. Debugging is a bit tough in ServiceNow Discovery, so debugging should be made very easy. Debugging should be made easy while developing the debugging pattern in ServiceNow Discovery.

I have been using ServiceNow Discovery for five years.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

It is a scalable tool since it is deployed on the cloud, because of which there are no issues with scalability. The scalability of the product may depend on some subscriptions, which may be a challenge since one will have to invest money. If we remove the financial part, the product's deployment is quite easy.

It is a very scalable solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

The technical support of ServiceNow DevOps can be challenging because we need to train the resources. If the resources don't receive the right training, and if one doesn't know what needs to be done during a particular scenario, then it can lead to a disaster for an enterprise. Proper training is required before using technical support since then only we can make sense of the support we expect to receive. We need to define a proper process for technical support, like whether it will be L1, L2, L3, or L4. The process should be very clear, and the right information should be provided to the right stakeholders. ServiceNow need not work on support because it is a tool. In ServiceNow, it's all about defining the process and training technical support, which is quite easy. The nuts and bolts required for technical support are catalogs, service requests, and incidents. I rate the technical support an eight out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup phase for ServiceNow Discovery was hard because a lot of communication had to be done with different stakeholders to understand their infrastructures and processes, which can take time. As a technical person, the installation of the product is just a matter of a few hours, but before that, we need to do a lot of exercises that are quite challenging. A lot of documentation needs to be done, and then we need to understand the perception of the stakeholder and what their expectations are, which can get challenging.

I rate the setup phase a seven out of ten.

The solution is deployed on the cloud.

The deployment process for the product is easy.

One needs to be more proactive and try to understand ServiceNow Discovery's process deeply. ServiceNow offers a similar offering for every client, and they have a similar kind of offer if one wants to install it, but every organization has a different process. There is a need for focus to understand an organization's process and stakeholder requirements, and vision.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

You can use it for network resources, servers, databases, and network gear. I've also used it in the past for asset management to discover desktop equipment, laptops, and peripherals.

It's pretty robust, and it's agentless for the most part. So, you don't need to deploy agents, which makes it a lot easier to stand up.

It's an expensive platform. In terms of features, it's pretty functional. You could always tweak it, but I don't have any problem with it. I don't find it to be at a disadvantage compared to something like SCCM, Intune, or any other tool that can do discoveries.

It is very stable. We have no problems with managing it and it being available for us.

It definitely seems very scalable. With it being agentless, you can set it up for IP ranges, and it'll go do what it needs to do. You don't have to implement it with agents to keep monitoring.

We have about 75 people who use this solution.

It was pretty straightforward.

It costs a lot. It is probably close to over a hundred thousand. It's an expensive platform, but you can't compare ServiceNow's Discovery functionality to other discovery tools. It's not an apples-to-apples comparison of ServiceNow to a configuration management tool to an asset management tool because it does those things, but it's not those things.

If it's too expensive, there are definitely a lot of alternatives out there that can do discovery just as well, especially if they have published APIs. I'm not wedded to ServiceNow's Discovery tool. You can get the same functionality from other applications like Device42 or SCCM. There are a lot of other options that are very cost-effective that can do exactly the same thing.

It's not perfect. I would rate it an eight out of ten. I have definitely seen other tools do a lot more, but they're more focused on other things.

ServiceNow Discovery provides features for discovering information about infrastructure, such as software details and CI (Configuration Item) data, quickly and efficiently.

I believe one of the great functionalities or improvements in ServiceNow Discovery is its ability to gather information about any Configuration Items (CIs). In the future, enhancing the model or software related to CIs would be beneficial.

I think ServiceNow Discovery's configuration management capabilities are effective in enhancing our IT operations. While there may be areas for improvement, overall, it's a good application.

I believe there is room for improvement in ServiceNow Discovery, particularly in providing more detailed information about network usage and communication between ServiceNow and the infrastructure. This improvement would enhance the overall effectiveness of the tool.

I have been using ServiceNow Discovery for the past three years. 

The solution is stable and reliable.

I would rate the scalability of this solution as an eight. While it offers good scalability overall, the reason for not giving it a ten is because the scalability greatly depends on having good processes and support in place. Without these, the scalability could be limited.

I would rate the technical support as medium. In cases where there is an urgent issue impacting the availability of ServiceNow, the response is very fast, but overall, it's a medium-level support.

Positive

I rate my experience with the initial setup of ServiceNow Discovery as a nine. It was quite easy to set up and integrate with our organization's systems. 

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.