Miniature Thesaurus for you as a ServiceNow Admin Beginner

Here’s a miniature encyclopedia – or thesaurus – to help you navigate the most essential areas of responsibility in your new role as a Now Platform administrator.

 

1 | System Cloning ≈ Once or Twice/Year

System Cloning is copying your production instance to your sub-production instance. This task is essential as it provides a tight deployment pipeline and facilitate efficient development and project execution on a reliable, up-to-date sub-production environment. Thereby supporting a smooth and less buggy build/test/deploy cycle - while ensuring a faster business outcome. If you want to learn more about System Cloning, visit docs.servicenow.com: system clone

  2 | Upgrading ≈ Once or Twice/Year

Upgrading is installing the latest feature release on your instance. This task is critical in ensuring that your Now Platform keeps up with all the new features made available with the latest family release, by planning and executing upgrades to provide your business with enhancements to the existing and new introductions – all incl. with your existing subscription. If you want to learn more about Upgrading, visit
docs.servicenow.com: upgrade center

  3 | Instance Scan ≈ Once/Quarter

Instance Scan is used for monitoring the vital signs of your instance. This is an crucial task as it gives important insight into the health state of your Now Platform. You do this by running scans or checks against application files or tables to identify and address any misconfigurations, security vulnerabilities or performance issues. If you want to learn more about Instance Scan, visit docs.servicenow.com: instance scan

  4 | Instance Security Center ≈ Once/Week

Instance Security Center is used to monitor and improve the security state of your instance. This is critical as this tools allows you to harden the instance to a state of minimal risk. You do this by continuously keeping tabs on critical security events while iteratively pursuing a better security posture to limit the risk of exploitation of any vulnerabilities on the instance itself. If you want to learn more about Instance Security Center, visit docs.servicenow.com: instance security center

  5 | Subscription Management ≈ Once/Month

Subscription Management is what you use to monitor the license usage of your instance and stay informed on license capacity and usage in order to better advise the business in optimal use of the platform and the subscribed products. If you want to learn more about Subscription Management, visit docs.servicenow.com: subscription management

  6 | Automated Test Framework ≈ During development/upgrades/clones

Automated Test Framework (STF) is what you use to automate testing and solution integrity validation on your non-production instance. This is a priceless tool and an efficient way to make sure core business enabling applications are tested correctly and timely. Using ATF you save human resources, speed up development, upgrading and cloning validation while at the same time guaranteeing testing is performed 100% identical with test results - and without user error. If you want to learn more about Automated Test Framework, visit
docs.servicenow.com: automated test framework

  7 | Certificate Monitoring ≈ Once/Year (+ by notification)

Certificate Monitoring is to monitor and proactively address any expiring certificates on your instance. This is absolutely critical and solely the responsibility of the admin. You are guaranteeing that certificates are kept current and expiration notifications are set andhave valid receivers. This way you ensure secure authentication connections are always functioning and enabling integrations to third-party systems. If you want to learn more about Certificate Monitoring, visit
docs.servicenow.com: certificates

8 | Performance Monitoring ≈ Once/Year (+ by request)

Performance Monitoring is what you do to monitor and analyze your instance performance. You do this by request or when doing debugging and root cause analysis. This is a very valuable task to be practicing on a regular basis as it keeps you aware of any bad influences on performance and any potentials in performance gains. You do this by analyzing performance metrics as an admin and doing that you have the possibility to identify, address and mitigate flawed business logic and uneconomical or burdensome integrations. If you want to learn more about Performance Monitoring, visit
docs.servicenow.com: performance monitoring

Dig deeper into each area and learn how to take good care of your instance – and remember, The Cloud People are here for you, if you need us - contact us.

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