Integrate Dynatrace and ServiceNow: A Step By Step Guide with ZigiOps Integration Platform

Monitoring systems play a crucial role in the stability and functioning of mid to large-scale enterprises. The chance to observe in detail key operational processes that run in the IT ecosystem helps departments manage various issues even before they have escalated. Metrics and monitoring data also help organizations keep track of their activities and prevent information disruption. Depending on their size and needs, some enterprises deploy not one but two or more monitoring tools. This allows them to review a larger amount of accumulated data and acquire a more detailed look at some of the background actions.

Dynatrace and ServiceNow (CMDB) are the two most used systems for this. Comprised of different modules, both help businesses get a comprehensive understanding of their internal IT actions.

In case you want to know more about the integration of the systems and the benefits of it, feel free to schedule a demo.

Dynatarce is a well-acknowledged application performance management platform. Depending on their needs, enterprises use Dynatrace either as a cloud or managed service. Either way, Dynatrace provides a detailed overview of crucial for businesses‘ internal actions and operations.

Dynatrace consists of five modules. They enable businesses to obtain a better overview of important processes and enhance their performance. These are Application Performance, Cloud infrastructure, Digital Experience, Digital Business Analytics, and AIOps. The services provided by each one of them help Dynatrace users acquire a full-scale overview of what is happening in their IT ecosystem.

ServiceNow CMDB provides important data about the enterprise infrastructure. It allows users to get a detailed look at important operational processes so they can track and halt any potential issues. Additionally, ServiceNow CMDB can timely resolve crucial service outages and address user-related issues.

At its core, the system acts as storage for all the valuable information that is connected to the company’s IT assets and configuration items.

Deploying ServiceNow CMDB into the enterprise’s IT infrastructure brings a lot of benefits. The most notable of them is that CMDB minimizes data silos. This enhances the visibility of any present IT data sources in the organization and eliminates outages.

Dynatrace and ServiceNow CMDB are some of the most sought-after enterprise IT tools. That’s why it’s no wonder that they can be found embedded in almost every enterprise’s solutions stack. Connecting the two in a way that enables seamless communication and data exchange between them expands the reach of their capabilities and provides additional solutions to issues.

Despite their comprehensive features, however, in most cases, Dynatrace and ServiceNow CMDB are used separately. This often results in miscommunication, errors (due to manual data transfer), and informational gaps.

Integrating them in a way that enables seamless end-to-end data flow is the only rational solution. Of course, there are plenty of integration tools available on the market. However, an integration tool that does not require additional coding and establishes the connection between Dynatrace and ServiceNow in no time is the best choice. ZigiOps fits these criteria. Being a flexible no-code integration platform, it integrates Dynatrace and ServiceNow CMDB in a few minutes.

Important data like topology, events, metrics, and problems get transferred in real time.

The integration of Dynatrace and ServiceNow revolves around a few important use cases. Let’s take a closer look at some of them.

One of your teams uses Dynatrace for monitoring important aspects of the enterprise’s IT ecosystem, while the other – utilizes ServiceNow CMDB. Dynatrace Agents have found servers that are missing in ServiceNow’s database. However, they must be closely monitored by it. To solve this, upon connecting the two, ZigiOps immediately gathers the newly discovered server information and sends it directly to ServiceNow CMDB.

The process goes in a similar way for Hosts, Processes, Services, and Applications. ZigiOps collects data for newly discovered points for monitoring and transfers all the necessary data to ServiceNow CMDB automatically. This happens according to your pre-set conditions, thanks to ZigiOps filtering and mapping capabilities. Only the aspects that match your specific use case are part of the integration.

With this, ZigiOps instantly enriches the system’s topology database with data from Dynatrace. ZigiOps makes regular checks on both Dynatrace and ServiceNow CMDB to keep all the information up to date.

ZigiOps also gets Dynatrace Problems and sends them directly to ServiceNow’s system as Incidents. All related host details and additional information are synchronized. The relevant information from the ServiceNow Incidents gets back to the Dynatrace Problem as Comments. It is similar for Events and Metrics extracted from Dynatrace.

ZigiOps is a flexible, no-code integration platform. It supports various complex use case scenarios, without requiring any previous coding skills or API usage. The integration platform comes with a list of pre-built templates that can be customized according to the particular use case. ZigiOps also comes with advanced filtering and field mapping features.

If you already have a specific Dynatrace ServiceNow use case and would like to know how ZigiOps can resolve it – schedule a 45-minute demo. We can start your free trial or PoC immediately.

Step 1: Installing the ZigiOps Integration Platform

ZigiOps comes with both on-premises and iPaaS versions. However, the setup and launch processes of the integrations are the same. Let’s log-in to ZigiOps.

Step 2: Establishing the connection with the Dynatrace and ServiceNow systems

Once logged-in, you see the platform’s dashboard. It contains active licenses, integrations done, and operations data. These are important metrics that are always available when you need them.

To add the systems, you want to connect (Dynatrace and ServiceNow in this case), navigate to the “Connected Systems” menu, and then click “Add New System”:

Once you choose the systems, the next step is to connect them. This happens easily. All you need is the instance’s URLs and admin’s details. There is no need for additional changes to the Dynatrace and ServiceNow systems.

For Dynatarce you need to fill in these data fields:

• Dynatarce system URL
• Username 
• Password 

Then, click on the “Save” button.

ZigiOps automatically checks the connection with Dynatrace and let you know when it’s successful.

The same actions must be done with ServiceNow. Click again on “Add New System” and find ServiceNow. Fill in your instance URL, username, and password. And click “Save”. That’s all.

Step 3: Setting initial integration details

ZigiOps comes with a list of customizable integration templates. This feature is especially useful when it comes to use cases that require special approach.

In the “Configurator” menu, click “Add New Integration”. From there you can choose the template you want to use – Dynatrace ServiceNow in our case.

Once it’s loaded, you must define the first and the second system (the destination).

Here, our first system is Dynatrace, while the destination – ServiceNow.

Step 4: Configure the integration

Once the systems are set in the right order, you can go take a look at the list of available operations (or “actions”) and choose those you want ZigiOps to execute.

Each integration template comes with pre-defined business logic and settings. It consists of configuration objects called “actions.”

Actions consist of two sections (or tabs) called “source” and “target.” They are a set of trigger conditions (or filters) and field mapping configuration for a particular pair of entities.

If the trigger is set to “polling” ZigiOps checks for updates in a predefined interval. If the trigger is defined as listener – ZigiOps receives updates from the source once there is something new to transfer.

After the trigger configuration is set, the next step is to define the integration actions. They can extract different information and entities connected to Memory, CPU, Network, and more. For example, when your CPU is reaching its limit, the integration can escalate this to ServiceNow CMDB and from there it can be transferred to the DevOps teams, if necessary.

Hosts, along with all related entities can be also transferred between Dynatrace and ServiceNow.

ZigiOps reads the schema dynamically which means it can extract all related and custom entities that ServiceNow and Dynatrace support and provide them in a drop-down menu list for the configuration afterwards. Then in the “Field map” section, you can create the field mapping for the corresponding operation.:

From there on, the integration is ready.

Step 5: Save and test

Once you’ve set the triggers and mapping, you can click the “Save” button. With this, the integration is saved. Testing the connection between the two systems is the last step. After that, the transfer of data can begin.

Monitoring systems are an integral part of the IT infrastructure of organizations, regardless of their size and industry. They provide responsible IT teams with the ability to closely observe key operational processes in their IT ecosystem and thus keep track of any arising issues.

Combining systems like Dynatrace and ServiceNow CMDB allows them to expand the range of their actions and get access to crucial data like metrics, topology, events, hosts and more. Connecting the two in a way that allows the seamless transfer of the accumulated data between the departments is vital for organizations that aim to scale their performance and deal with user-related issues in a timely manner. But for this to happen, it is important to choose a flexible integration platform that can be customized according to the company’s needs and use case. A tool like ZigiOps fits in the description. A modern, out-of-the-box solution, ZigiOps connects Dynatrace and ServiceNow (CMDB) in a few clicks.

Choose smart integration – try ZigiOps. Schedule a demo now and start your free PoC.