Amazon EC2 for Cloud Provisioning

Note: This article applies to Fuji and earlier releases. For more current information, see Approvals and Provisioning for Amazon EC2 at http://docs.servicenow.com The ServiceNow Wiki is no longer being updated. Visit http://docs.servicenow.com for the latest product documentation.

Overview

The Amazon Web Services application for cloud provisioning enables users to request the provisioning, modification, and deletion of virtual machines (Linux or Windows) in the Amazon EC2 virtual computing environment through the ServiceNow service catalog. The purchase agreement with Amazon is the responsibility of the customer and is not provided with the ServiceNow subscription. ServiceNow supports multiple Amazon EC2 accounts per instance.

Amazon EC2 for cloud provisioning is available as a separate subscription, and uses Orchestration, which is also available as a separate subscription from the rest of the ServiceNow platform.

Asset Management Integration

The My Assets plugin creates a new model and model category called EC2 Instance. The system creates a new asset for this model when cloud provisioning fulfills a virtual machine request, and then creates an EC2 configuration item (CI). This new asset appears in the requester's My Assets portal. When the virtual machine is terminated, asset management retires the asset. The My Assets plugin is active automatically for new instances.

Upgrade Instructions

Upgrading to Calgary from an earlier version of ServiceNow migrates the Amazon EC2 account, but does not fully populate the EC2 Image [ec2_image] and EC2 Instance [cmdb_ci_ec2_instance] tables.

To complete the upgrade process:

1. Navigate to Amazon EC2 > Configuration > Account.
2. Select the Amazon EC2 account.
3. Click Update Images under Related Links.

   The system populates the EC2 Images related list with all available EC2 images.

4. Click Update Instances under Related Links.

   The system populates the EC2 Virtual Machine Instances related list with all instances provisioned for this account.

Activating the Plugin

Cloud provisioning for Amazon EC2 requires the Orchestration - Amazon EC2 plugin, which is available as a separate subscription. It uses Orchestration, which is available as a separate subscription.

To purchase a subscription, contact your ServiceNow account manager. The account manager will arrange to have the plugin activated on your organization's production instance, generally within a few days.

Note: If you do not have an account manager or decide to delay activation after purchase, use the steps below when you are ready to activate.

You can evaluate the feature on a sub-production instance without charge by requesting it from the HI Customer Service System.

Click the plus to expand instructions for requesting a plugin.

Navigate to [HI]. Click Service Catalog. Click Request Plugin Activation. [Required] In Target Instance, select the instance on which to activate the plugin. [Required] In Plugin Name, enter the name of the plugin to activate. [Optional] In Date and time would you like the plugin to be enabled?, specify a date and time at least 12 hours in the future. Leave this field empty if you want the plugin activated as soon as possible. Note: Plugins are generally activated during business hours in the Pacific time zone, but can be scheduled for a different time with advance notice. [Optional] In Reason/Comments, add any information that would be helpful for the ServiceNow technical support engineer activating the plugin. Click Submit.

Enhancements

Fuji

• You can provision EC2 instances into a virtual private cloud (VPC) and assign a subnet.

Eureka

• The Run Instances activity can pass an optional user data parameter to define bootstrap behavior.
• A cloud administrator can configure Amazon EC2 accounts without uploading a PEM certificate.