The ServiceNow Service Graph Connector for OpenTelemetry allows you to map data sources currently reporting to Cloud Observability as configuration items (CIs) in the ServiceNow CMDB. Visibility to these sources in the CMDB allows you to monitor your cloud-based infrastructure in the same way as your on-premise systems.
This topic provides the pre-installation planning you need to do before installing the Connector to ensure your data is correct. For detailed instructions on installing and configuring the Connector, see Service Graph Connector for OpenTelemetry on the ServiceNow documentation site.
Send telemetry data to Cloud Observability
Cloud Observability can ingest telemetry data sent from your system using OpenTelemetry. Most ingestion paths use the OpenTelemetry Collector, a vendor-agnostic agent for receiving, processing, and exporting telemetry data. Systems running in a Kubernetes environment also use the OpenTelemetry Operator. For viewing trace data from cloud-based services, you instrument your service with OpenTelemetry and then use the Collector to retrieve, process, and export that data.
We strongly recommend all cloud customers follow the Kubernetes Quickstart to deploy the Collector, which automatically configures Kubernetes clusters and workloads to send telemetry in the right format for the SGC.
Use the following table to determine how best to get your telemetry data into Cloud Observability.
| Send data from: | What you’ll use: | What you’ll see: | Docs: |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cloud infrastructure | Cloud Observability + info from your provider | Metrics Logs* |
Ingest metrics from Amazon Ingest metrics from GCM Ingest metrics from Azure AKS Secondary: Metric integrations |
| Kubernetes infrastructure | Collector + Operator | Metrics (including Prometheus) Logs* |
Quick Start Secondary: Use the OpenTelemetry Collector Metric integrations |
| Other infrastructure (databases/mainframes/log collectors /network proprietary agents, etc.) |
Collector | Metrics Logs* |
Quickstart: Collector for infrastructure metrics Metric integrations Already using the collector? Secondary: Use the OpenTelemetry Collector |
| Application services | OpenTelemetry instrumentation Collector Operator (if on Kubernetes) |
Metrics Logs* Traces |
Quickstart: Tracing instrumentation Quickstart: Collector for application data Secondary: Use the OpenTelemetry Collector |
| Already using the Collector | Configure the Collector | Already using the collector? |
* Log data is available as an early access feature. Contact your account representative to learn more.
Verify data is present and accurate
Once you have data coming into Cloud Observability, you should verify that it’s correct and complete in Cloud Observability before you send it to the Service Graph Connector. How you do that depends on the type of telemetry you’re verifying.
Infrastructure and application metrics
- Use our pre-built dashboards for AWS and OpenTelemetry to see that metric data is correct.
- Cloud Observability provides a metric details section where you can view all reporting metrics and their metadata.
Service topology
In a dashboard or notebook, create a dependency map. The service diagram shows all reporting services and their dependencies.
Gather identifiers needed during installation
You’ll need the following values during installation of the Service Graph Connector:
-
Organization name: You can find the organization at the top of the Account Management settings page.
-
Cloud Observability API key: Create a new API key for the Connector. Note that the key expires after one year.
You can now continue on to the installation of the Service Graph Connector.
Send alert notifications
You can also send notifications for Cloud Observability alerts directly to ServiceNow Event Management by connecting alerts to a notification destination. Notification destinations can be automatically created in the Guided Setup of the Service Graph Connector for OpenTelemetry.
See also
Use the OpenTelemetry Collector
Quickstart Kubernetes: Collector and Operator
Updated Jul 7, 2023