Article Summary

In this guide, we will showcase the step-by-step process of integrating Zabbix and ServiceNow. The two popular monitoring and ITSM tools often coexist in environments but need to be connected to ease the data transfer. ZigiOps supports three main use cases between Zabbix and ServiceNow including transfer of topology, events, and incidents.

If you are looking to transfer any of these types of data, do not hesitate and book your technical demo

If you would like to explore the topic in more detail, continue reading.

About Zabbix

Zabbix is an open-source enterprise ready monitoring solution for network and application monitoring. With Zabbix you can detect problem states within the incoming metric flow automatically and keep control of your infrastructure. It allows tracking of millions of metrics from any source and is very flexible in terms of threshold definition options.

Zabbix provides its users with multiple messaging channels to notify the responsible people about the different kinds of events occurring in their environment.

About ServiceNow

ServiceNow is one of the most widely used IT service management platforms. Thousands of companies rely on ServiceNow to handle incidents and service requests and run, structure, and automate processes for service desk operations.

It delivers targeted personalized experiences and helps visualize business process workflows in a simple, task-oriented way. Thanks to ServiceNow teams become more agile, employees can respond to issues more efficiently, and businesses become more flexible when handling various request types.

Why integrate them?

Every other company uses ServiceNow and it is quite popular in the enterprise world. It helps teams manage service desk and IT operations with great flexibility. Zabbix is among the monitoring tools that give lots of freedom to enterprises and it is quite common for monitoring a large number of assets and metrics.

Different terms, such as the service desk and monitoring ones, often need to collaborate to resolve issues prior they escalate. If issues are addressed quickly, customers stay happy, and this boosts the overall business results. This is why cross-team collaboration is crucial for every organization. It is much easier to maintain your teams aligned when the systems they are using are connected. If your service desk team is using ServiceNow and your monitoring team is using Zabbix, the easiest way to achieve that is by integrating the two tools.

If the two software tools are used separately, and the data needs to be transferred manually, this often leads to delays, silos, and mistakes. But if you integrate Zabbix and ServiceNow and have a free flow of data from one tool to the other, you can speed up issue resolutions, balance your asset monitoring, and have the right information get to the right people in real-time. Furthermore, when the two tools are working together, the result is faster insights, transparency of operations, and prevention of critical problems.

Common Integration Use Cases

If you are using both Zabbix and ServiceNow to manage your enterprise ecosystem and handle service requests, you can greatly benefit from syncing the two tools and having them seamlessly work together. This can be done in minutes with the ZigiOps integration platform. You can set up a no-code Zabbix ServiceNow integration with a few clicks.

There are three distinct common use cases we have identified:

1. Zabbix Hosts to ServiceNow Servers (get the details)

2. Zabbix Events to ServiceNow Incidents (get the details)

3. Zabbix Events to ServiceNow Events (get the details)

Let's look into the details.

ZigiOps collects Host or Event data from Zabbix. With the integration platform, you can easily pre-set the conditions and field mapping, so you can make sure only the necessary data is collected. ZigiOps processes it through the filters and field mapping configuration and sends a request to ServiceNow to create either a new Server (Server CIs) or a new Event/Incident.

Once the new ServiceNow item (Event, Incident, or CI) is created and the data is transferred to it, the integration platform automatically keeps all records up to date.

How to integrate Zabbix and ServiceNow in 5 minutes with ZigiOps

ZigiOps is ZigiWave's no-code integration platform. It is simple, yet powerful and supports complex use-case scenarios, without the need for any API or coding knowledge. ZigiOps makes integrations easier and accessible for everyone by providing out-of-the-box templates that can be customized and scaled with the advanced filtering and field mapping options.

If you already have a specific Zabbix ServiceNow use case and would like to see how ZigiOps can resolve it schedule a 45-minute demo (book from here). We can start your free trial or PoC immediately.

Step 1: Installing the ZigiOps Integration Platform

ZigiOps comes in on-premises and iPaaS versions, but the setup and launch of integrations are the same. For the purposes of this example, we will use the on-prem version.

The installation process is straightforward and takes no more than 10-15 minutes.

Once installed, it is time to log-into ZigiOps.

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

When you log in, you will then see the dashboard, which showcases your active licenses, integrations, and operations data.

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To add the systems you want to integrate (in this case Zabbix and ServiceNow), go to the Connected Systems menu, and click Add New System:

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Once you choose the systems, you need to connect to them. This is very easy. You will only need your instance URLs and admin details. You do not need to make any changes to your Zabbix or ServiceNow settings.

For ServiceNow, you need to fill in these fields:

• ServiceNow system URL
• Username
• Password

After filling them, click on the Save button:

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ZigiOps will automatically check your connection with ServiceNow and let you know when it's successful. Then you do the same for Zabbix click on Add New System, enter your instance URL, username, and password, and click Save. When this is completed, you have successfully established the connection with the two systems.

Step 3: Setting initial integration details

ZigiOps comes with a library of ready-to-use integration templates. They are all customizable, yet you can always start an integration from scratch. From the Configurator menu, click the button Add New Integration, and from the available templates just choose the one for Zabbix to ServiceNow.

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Once you load it, you can define which system will be first and which second (the destination). For this example, let's take a host from Zabbix and create a new topology/server in ServiceNow based on the information from Zabbix.

In this case, our first system is Zabbix, and our destination is ServiceNow.

Note: There are integration entities that you can choose. If working with a template they are pre-defined, but you can add more or customize them. These can be hosts, events, incidents, etc.

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Step 4: Configure the integration

Once you have set the systems in the correct order, you can go through the list of available operations (or actions) and select the ones you want the system to execute.

Each integration template has pre-defined business logic and settings and consists of configuration objects called actions.

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An action consists of two sections (or tabs) called source and target. It represents a set of trigger conditions (or filters) and field mapping configurations for a particular pair of entities.

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The trigger can be set to polling where ZigiOps goes and checks for updates in a predefined interval or to listener, where the integration platform receives updates from the source once there is something new to transfer.

After you finish the trigger configuration, you need to define the integration actions such as filtering field mappings, conditions, and data collection.

ZigiOps reads the schema dynamically and provides a drop-down menu list of all the items that can be synchronized. You can define the logic that will show ZigiOps how to synchronize and keep both systems updated after the initial transfer of information.

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Then in the Field map section, you can create the field mapping for the corresponding operation:

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From there on, the integration is ready.

Step 5: Save and test

Once you are ready with the triggers and mapping, click the Save button, to save your integration. After that, you are ready to test how your new integration works. Go to Zabbix and create a host. ZigiOps will pick it up and transfer all the relevant data and fields you have defined in your field mapping to ServiceNow.

Conclusion

Zabbix and ServiceNow are two tools that help enterprises keep up with automation challenges and stay competitive in the digital transformation era. It is very common for these software applications to be used together in an organization's IT ecosystem. When they are not integrated though this might create bottlenecks and delays that are harmful to the business results.

With a Zabbix ServiceNow integration, you can align your teams, control your IT infrastructure better, and prevent critical issues from happening. ZigiOps helps you do that effortlessly, without the need for any coding knowledge. You can integrate your systems within minutes and have the data flow between them seamlessly.

See how easy it can be done -Try ZigiOps' Free Trial. or Schedule a demo now and start your free PoC.