How to Integrate ITSM software by Service-Flow

Integration Service | www.service-flow.com | flow@service-flow.com

How to integrate ITSM software?

Kai Virkki, 24.9.2013

Integration Service | www.service-flow.com | flow@service-flow.com Integration Service | www.service-flow.com | flow@service-flow.com

Agenda

ITSM integration challenges Different ways to integrate Service-Flow Lessons learned

Integration challenges: process

Processes– Probably different at both ends– How to connect at the interface?– There might be more than 2 parties

Customer and n vendors is typical

Vendor

Customer

Simple example processEnd user creates

new ticket

Create new ticket

Transfer to support group:

Vendor 1

Create new ticket Assign ticket

Update ticket information:

Status: Assigned

Handle ticketResolve

ticket: Status: Resolved

Status

Worklog

Update ticket info: Status:

Solved

?? ?? ?? ??

Integration challenges: technology

– ITSM data: How to transfer? How to route? How to map? How to transform?

– What tools to use?– ITSM software integration interfaces not very well

documented or standardized– How to connect ITSM software that is usually located

inside corporate network, protected by firewalls etc?

Different integration styles

Point-to-point

Hub-and-spoke

Different integration technologies

FTPFTP

Database

<XML/> {JSON}

Let’s go through the most common ones…

Email File Transfer (FTP) Web services

Email Integration

Customer ITSM Software Vendor ITSM Software

Customer’s Mail server

Vendor’s Mail server

emailINCIDENTID: INC-1234Subject: Printer brokenDescription: My local printerCategory: 12Status: UntouchedCustomer: jorma@ankkalinna.fiCreation Time:……

From: servicedesk@example.comTo: support@vendor.comSubject: [Ticket #INC-1234] Printer broken

Body:”Customer: jorma@ankkalinna.fiDescription: My local printer”

INCIDENTID: INC-1234Subject: Printer brokenDescription: My local printerCategory: 12Status: UntouchedCustomer: jorma@ankkalinna.fiCreation Time:……

Many ITSM systems can transform tickets to mail out-of-the-box

Body:”Customer: jorma@ankkalinna.fiDescription: My local printer”

TICKETID: TN-987Title: Printer brokenCustomer: Example.comWorklog:”Customer: jorma@ankkalinna.fiDescription: My local printer”…

Many ITSM systems can transform tickets to mail out-of-the-box

Many ITSM systems can create tickets from mail out-of-the-box

File Transfer (FTP)

Customer ITSM Software Vendor ITSM Software

Vendor’s FTP server

<incident> <ID> INC-1234 </ID> <Subject> Printer broken </Subject> <Description> My local printer <Description> <Category>12</Category> <Status>Untouched</Status> <Customer>jorma@ankkalinna.fi</Customer> ..</incident>

TICKETID: TN-987Title: Printer brokenDescription: My local printerCustomer: jormaState: NewCategory 1: AMS ServicesCategory 2: ……

1. Generate some text presentation of the Incident

2. Write (XML) file to FTP server

1. Read (XML) file from FTP server

2. Transform customer format to vendor format

3. Translate data

Web services

Customer ITSM Software Vendor ITSM SoftwareAPIAPI

Web services

ITSM vendor proprietary web services APIs Most reasonably modern software offer some

form of an API– For inserting, updating and querying tickets

P2P Web services

1.1: Send ticket data to insert

1.2: Reply with ID (success)

n.1: Send ticket data to update

n.2: Reply with success

Can things be this easy?

email?

Body:”Customer: jorma@ankkalinna.fiDescription: My local printerCategory: 12Status: Untouched”

TICKETID: TN-987Title: Printer brokenDescription: My local printerCategory: ASMState: AssignedCustomer: jormaCustomer ID: INC-1234…

How about getting something from the mail body?

Body:”Customer: jorma@ankkalinna.fiDescription: My local printerCategory: 12Status: Untouched”

Or translating category/status?

Body:”Customer: jorma@ankkalinna.fiDescription: My local printerCategory: 12”

Or getting the customer incident ID?

From: support@vendor.comTo: servicedesk@example.comSubject: #TN-987# Printer broken

Body:”Customer: jormaDescription: My local printerCategory: ASM…”

What if vendor cannot add our ID to subject in correct format? How then target the correct incident?

Do the ITSM tools offer the functionality to send/receive ticket to/from FTP?– Most of them don’t

Do the ITSM tools offer the functionality to transfer to recipient format?– Most of them don’t

Who is responsible of the FTP server? Did transfer to the other system succeed? How are files kept in correct temporal order? Who removes files when they have been

Web services?

Web services

Do the ITSM tools offer functionality to send ticket data to other systems?– Many of them don’t

Do the ITSM tools offer functionality to transform to recipient format?– Most of them don’t

Do the ITSM tools offer functionality to handle the response?– Most of them don’t

What then?

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) to the rescue!

Customer ITSM Software Vendor ITSM SoftwareAPIAPI ESB

ESB:• Queries or receives tickets from

customer ITSM system• Transforms to vendor format• Sends to vendor using the vendor

ITSM software API• Handles resends in case of

connections failures etc.• Handles errors

Who owns the ESB, customer or vendor? Integrations need to be implemented to ESB,

they don’t magically happen– Adapters to ITSM tool APIs– Transformations– Translations– Retries and error-handling

Who understands the ESB logs when there are errors?

Industry best-practice: ESB to every Enterprise!

Customer ITSM Software Vendor ITSM SoftwareAPIAPI ESB ESB

Software X Software Y

Industry best-practice: ESB to every Enterprise!

Customer ITSM Software Vendor ITSM SoftwareAPIAPI ESB ESB

Now we have 3 integrations to build!• Customer ITSM software – ESB• ESB – ESB• Vendor ITSM software - ESB

Who builds the integrations?Who supports them?

How about this?

Global Service Bus / Message Broker

Global Service Bus / Message Broker?

Take the great ideas of ESB and take them out of the enterprise to the internet and offer as a service

ITSM Software has APIs, leverage them– Ready-made adapters

Robust queuing for highly-available and reliable integrations

Customers and vendors don’t need to manage integration platforms and integrations

Service-Flow

Not an integration platform, but a ready-to-use service for ITSM integrations

Secure, scalable, reliable and highly available message brokering

Offered as an SaaS from the cloud Customers can concentrate on their ITSM

tools and processes

Service-Flow: Broker

Route messages (tickets creates/updates) between parties with routing rules

Routing rules selected based on message sender and contents

Map between the parties– Different mapping types and formatters

Mapping examples: Copy

Routing and mapping examples: Translate

Routing and mapping examples: TableTranslate

Routing and mapping examples: Template

Routing and mapping examples: Default

Service-Flow: Concepts

Flow:– An integration business case

E.g. SAP Support outsourcing

Conversation– All messages related to the same tickets

Conversation example

Service-Flow: Operations

The service is operated by the devops team No maintenance windows:– Upgrades done live– Usually once per week, but could be multiple

times per day Measured availability for individual service

components during last year at least 99,99%– Less than 53 minutes downtime per year

Service-Flow: Security

All network communications between ITSM tools encrypted (SSL, 256bit).

Deployed into a cloud Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) that runs on top of the Amazon cloud in the EU.

Amazon cloud is very secure and has certifications to prove it:– SAS70 Type II, ISO 27001, PCI DSS Level 1 etc.

Service-Flow Architecture

SaaS Provider Z

Secure Cloud Infrastructure

Service-FlowCustomer X

Network

ITSM Tool X

Customer Y Network

ITSM Tool Y

ITSM Tool Z

Web Browser

Adapter X

Adapter Z

Adapter Y

User Interface

Broker

Example integration flow

Service-Flow architecture

Service-Flow

Vendor Y

Customer X

Efecte ITSM Suite

ServiceNow

Web API

Direct Web Services

Service-Flow

Efecte Adapter

ServiceNow Adapter

1: Create ticket

Service-Flow

Vendor Y

Customer X

Efecte ITSM Suite

ServiceNow

Web API

Direct Web Services

Service-Flow

Efecte Adapter

ServiceNow Adapter

2: Send Efecte ticket XML to Service-Flow

Service-Flow

Vendor Y

Customer X

Efecte ITSM Suite

ServiceNow

Web API

Direct Web Services

Service-Flow

Efecte Adapter

ServiceNow Adapter

3: Transform to Service-Flow internal format

Service-Flow

ServiceNow Adapter

Efecte Adapter

Vendor Y

Customer X

Efecte ITSM Suite

ServiceNow

Web API

Direct Web Services

Service-Flow

4: Select recipient, map and transform data, keep track of the ticket conversation

Service-Flow

Vendor Y

Customer X

Efecte ITSM Suite

ServiceNow

Web API

Direct Web Services

Service-Flow

Efecte Adapter

ServiceNow Adapter

5: Transform to ServiceNow web services format and send to ServiceNow

Service-Flow

Vendor Y

Customer X

Efecte ITSM Suite

ServiceNow

Web API

Direct Web Services

Service-Flow

Efecte Adapter

ServiceNow Adapter

6: Insert to correct table, e.g. incident

Service-Flow

Vendor Y

Customer X

Efecte ITSM Suite

ServiceNow

Web API

Direct Web Services

Service-Flow

Efecte Adapter

ServiceNow Adapter

Service-Flow UI Demo

Lessons learned

Processes from different organizations can be hard to map together– Good partners are needed to help with this– KISS-principle (Keep It Simple, Silly!)

Lessons learned

Most ITSM software isn’t built with integrations in mind– Those who design integration interfaces don’t

always have experience writing integrations– File attachments are the Achilles’ heel of many

integration interfaces– Integrating can be technically challenging, but

once it’s done, it can be reused as an adapter

Lessons learned

It might take a long time to get network access to an ITSM software inside corporate network– There aren’t any great solutions to this, but

organizations starting to use SaaS ITSM tools helps– Involve security and network people early in the

project

Lessons learned

Many organizations are suspicious about cloud services– Cloud providers have to take security very seriously

and get applicable certifications and audits to prove their trustworthiness

– How much can organizations really trust on their own people and internal security?

– Fact of life: When doing B2B integrations, there has to be some places, where data flows outside company internal networks.

Thank you!

@kaivirkki

Mail: kai.virkki@service-flow.com

How to Integrate ITSM software by Service-Flow

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