Release: Vancouver
Audience
All Learners
Overview
Use this study guide when completing your delta exam in Now Learning. The content presented in this knowledge article is the exam content you will be tested on to maintain your certification. In addition, we always encourage you to review ServiceNow's Product Documentation.
Delta Exam Study Guide Content
The Road Ahead for Cloud
In the Vancouver release of Cloud Provisioning and Governance (CPG), there are no significant changes to the product. ServiceNow’s cloud team has been busy building out an ecosystem of cloud product offerings to leverage and support CPG. These offerings are being bundled together in a new suite of products under the banner Cloud Accelerate.
Please read on to find additional information on this exciting new offering.
Cloud Accelerate
In November 2023, ITOM Cloud Accelerate will be launched as a comprehensive product offering providing cloud automation solutions for Day 0, 1, and 2 workflows.
Cloud Accelerate is a comprehensive SKU that allows businesses to accelerate their Cloud Transformation and will include entitlements to:
- Cloud Services Catalog (CSC) to automate cloud service requests and cloud lifecycle management processes
- Cloud Configuration Governance (CCG) to automate policy compliance for cloud resources
- Cloud Migration Assessment (CMA) to streamline Cloud Migration plans
- Cloud Action Library (CAL) to remediate drift and violations from best practice norms
- Cloud Account Management (CAM)* to automate and manage cloud subscription account requests
Problems
Customers (central IT Teams) often face these questions in their cloud adoption journey:
- How can we make the cloud request and provisioning process frictionless from a catalog marketplace while enforcing necessary controls for "DevSecOps"?
- In our cloud transformation journey, is application 'X' ready to move to the cloud, or should it be retired in favor of a cloud-native architecture, or should another R-disposition strategy be followed?
- What are the automation complexities in integrating and scaling our cloud services?
- Are the resources in the cloud configured and deployed per the norms established at the corporate level?
- Can we remediate drift and fix the misconfigured cloud resources? For example, set up encryption on an S3 bucket, disable root users without MFA authentication, and enable monitoring for Azure VMs.
- What is the Cloud Center of Excellence practice - how can our organization benefit from this?
- How do we handle sub-optimal structure and overcome delays in approval, low productivity, etc., while requesting cloud accounts?
Solutions
1. Cloud Services Catalog (CSC)
Portal to Enterprise Cloud Catalog - Cloud Automation Hub:
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- Centralized Catalog: CSC provides a centralized catalog where customers can discover and access various cloud resources and services.
- Resource Management: Customers can manage the lifecycle of these resources from within the catalog, which includes provisioning, scaling, and decommissioning.
- Integration: It integrates with leading cloud providers like AWS and Azure, enabling customers to access resources from these providers seamlessly.
- DevOps and Ansible Integration: CSC offers catalogs like Azure DevOps integration and Ansible Integration with continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) pipelines for configuration management and automation.
2. Cloud Configuration Governance (CCG)
Find Drift from Best Practice Configs - Report and Remediate:
- Configuration Compliance Checking: Employ the Cloud Configuration Governance application to regularly review the configuration settings of your organization's cloud resources.
- Policy-Based Violation Detection: Compare these configuration settings against established policies to identify violations or deviations from the defined standards.
- Efficient Remediation: Utilize built-in remediation workflows to promptly address and mitigate identified violations, ensuring that your cloud resources comply with your organization's policies.
- Continuous Monitoring: Maintain ongoing monitoring to ensure that cloud resources consistently adhere to your organization's configuration policies, promoting security and compliance.
3. Cloud Actions Library (CAL)
Create and Manage Cloud Accounts - Check for Permissions Creep, Report:
- Ready-to-Use Actions and Sub-flows: Leverage the pre-built actions and sub-flows available in the Cloud Action Library application for seamless interaction with your organization's cloud resources.
- Integration with ServiceNow ITOM Governance: Integrate these actions with Cloud Configuration Governance to enable efficient and standardized operations on cloud resources.
- Enhanced Automation: Simplify and improve automation by using these readily available actions, streamlining tasks by employing predefined actions and sub-flows, and reducing manual effort and potential errors.
4. Cloud Migration Assessment (CMA)
Find the Right R-disposition - Plan Your Migration Waves:
- Streamlined Cloud Migration Planning: Utilize the Cloud Migration Assessment application to efficiently plan, organize, and oversee the relocation of your enterprise IT assets to cloud platforms.
- Resource Analysis and Visualization: Gain insights into your IT resources through intuitive dashboards that categorize and display resource information. Dive into detailed data for individual resources when needed.
- Comprehensive Migration Preparation: Group servers, establish migration assessment tasks, engage stakeholders, and leverage collected data on hardware, applications, and server configurations. Use this information to assess migration approaches, including strategies and the number of migration waves required.
- Informed Decision-Making: Collaborate with stakeholders to make well-informed decisions about migrating to the cloud, taking advantage of their input to determine the most suitable migration approach for your organization.
5. Cloud Account Management (CAM)*
Harness power of Automation Engine - ITOM Library for cloud automation flows
- Streamlined Onboarding and Offboarding: Simplify the process of bringing cloud resources into your organization and removing them efficiently.
- Continuous Attestation and Access Control: Ensure ongoing security and compliance through permission evaluations and managerial attestation by providing just-in-time elevated access for emergency situations.
- Unified Multi-Cloud Landing Zone: Centralize account management, authentication, and access control for multiple cloud providers.
- Automation for Governance and Productivity: Agile multi-cloud governance without compromising operational speed. Automate cost optimization, error reduction, and lifecycle management, promoting productivity and alignment with organizational goals.