ITOM Licensing FAQDescription The goal of this knowledge base article is to answer frequently asked questions to ServiceNow Technical Support. If you have follow-up questions, please contact Technical Support. Table of Contents DescriptionWhat are the different ITOM licenses categories?Compliance-reported consumption?What is ITOM Visibility?What is ITOM Discovery?How are Discovery/Visibility CIs counted daily?Can I build a report/query to see all the CIs counted for Discovery/Visibility?Can you purchase subscriptions to both ITOM Visibility and ITOM Discovery?What is ITOM Health?How are ITOM Health licenses counted?What is ITOM Optimization?How are ITOM Optimization Licenses counted?Can I purchase licenses in bundle?Can I purchase licenses a la carte?Can bundled licenses be used to cover other applications?Will a CI be counted twice?What are subscription unit ratios?Can I view the list of CIs counted towards licenses?Is license calculation domain separated?Can I view the daily counts?ProblemsAdditional Information What are the different ITOM licenses categories? VisibilityHealthOptimization Compliance-reported consumption? Each day, we recompute the average of daily counts from the last 90 days, in order to smooth out potential high and low swings in increasingly dynamic environments. This 90-day moving average is reported as the official consumption value each day. What is ITOM Visibility? The ServiceNow® ITOM Visibility product consists of ServiceNow® Discovery, ServiceNow®Service Mapping, Certificate Inventory and Management, Service Graph Connectors, Multisource CMDB, and Firewall Audits and Reporting. Discovery and Service Mapping give you a unified, connected view of your entire IT network and the services that it supports. In addition, Service Graph Connectors populate the CMDB by bringing in data from third-party monitoring and management systems. Multisource CMDB enables you to track how the CMDB contains various discovery sources at the CI attribute level. Use Certificate Inventory and Management to avoid service outages due to expired TLS certificates. Firewall Audits and Reporting helps you to discover and manage your firewall security policies to heighten the security awareness for firewall audits. For licensing purposes, ITOM Visibility provides the CI count it discovers, both during horizontal and top-down discovery. It also reports CIs that the Service Graph Connectors populate the CMDB with. ITOM Visibility reports the count for CIs of the following CI categories: Servers, PaaS, and Containers. What is the ITOM SU Licensing application? The ITOM SU Licensing application is a plugin available on Rome+ instances. This plugin works the same way as older license scripts. However, this plugin moves license changes to the store app which allows for quarterly releases. Any customer on or above Rome Patch 5 can install (or chose not to) this plugin. From San Diego onwards this plugin is auto installed on the instance. There is no need for any user action when installing version 2.0.0 onwards. For First version however, the user has to deactivate the old license jobs. Please see KB1117259 if installing a version older than 2.0.0. What is ITOM Discovery? ServiceNow® ITOM Discovery is an entry-level package alternative where customers can build a healthy data platform. This package measures licensed usage of the Discovery feature and Service Graph Connectors. Discovery is a "subset" of ITOM Visibility that is also based on subscription units. ITOM Discovery includes the following basic features: ServiceNow® Discovery, Service Graph Connectors, and Multisource CMDB. ServiceNow® Discovery finds applications and devices on your network, and then updates the CMDB. Service Graph Connectors supplement the population of the CMDB, while Multisource CMDB retains the complete history of discovery sources and proposed values. ITOM Discovery provides the count of CIs found by ServiceNow® Discovery and brought in by Service Graph Connectors. ITOM Discovery reports the count for CIs of the following CI categories: Servers, PaaS, and Containers. Note: Discovery and Visibility Licenses can have more categories like End User Devices or Networking Devices. You can find all the License Categories in table itom_lu_metadata (Before Rome Patch 1) and table itom_lu_category_metadata (Rome Patch 1 onwards). Customer licenses might have all or some of these categories. How are Discovery/Visibility CIs counted daily? In our daily counts, we filter CIs in the CMDB of the effective licensable classes meeting the following criteria at that moment: Duplicate of (duplicate_of) is emptyMost Recent Discovery (last_discovered)* is within past 90 daysDiscovery Source (discovery_source)* is servicenow, service-now, servicewatch, or ACC-Visibility As Service Graph Connectors are installed, their identifier strings from the ITOM Licensing Discovery Sources (itom_lu_discovery_sources) table are added to this filter Status (install_status) is not retired (7), stolen (8) or absent (100)For cmdb_ci_vm_instance (and child class) CIs, we filter out those with Instantiates::Instantiated By or Virtualizes::Virtualized By relationships with cmdb_ci_server (or child class) CIs (which also meet the above criteria), to avoid duplicate counting of logical virtual servers that are represented by CIs of both classesAs of Paris Patch 9, and Quebec Patch 4, for cmdb_ci_virtualization_server (and child class) CIs, we filter out those with Runs On::Runs relationships with cmdb_ci_server (or child class) CIs (which also meet the above criteria), to avoid duplicate counting of virtualization host and operating system discovery patterns that create independent CIs for the same serverAs of Orlando Patch 10 and Paris Patch 5, we also exclude CIs of type cmdb_ci_vmware_instance (which is a child of cmdb_ci_vm_instance) based on Guest ID (guest_id) values that indicate Windows desktops: win2000ProGuest, win31Guest, win95Guest, win98Guest, windows7_64Guest, windows7Guest, windows8_64Guest, windows8Guest, windows9_64Guest, windows9Guest, winVista64Guest, winVistaGuest, winXPHomeGuest, winXPPro64Guest, winXPProGuest Note that when upgrading from a version/patch level prior to this change to a version/patch level with this change, there may be a noticeable decrease in subsequent daily counts * In order to compensate for different CMDB input sources overwriting the discovery_source and last_discovered fields, in practice we measure against the sys_object_source table, via a join using the CI’s sys_id, evaluating the last_scan and name fields of any matching entries. Manual queries against the CI fields as shown above are typically consistent with our actual count algorithm, unless there are other sources that are overwriting these attributes. How are Service Mapping CIs(part of Visibility) counted? ITOM Visibility also factors in CIs of the effective licensable classes (filtered as described in "How are Discovery/Visibility CIs counted daily") that are associated (via svc_ci_assoc) to Service CIs of type Discovered (cmdb_ci_service_discovered) or any of its subclasses with Service Type (type) attribute values of Discovered (2) or Tag-based (4). Will Service Mapping CIs be double counted? No. These CIs are de-duplicated against the CIs returned in the Daily Discovery & Service Graph count logic above. Can I build a report/query to see all the CIs counted for Discovery/Visibility? No. As detailed in the answer to "How are Discovery/Visibility CIs counted daily" we will also use relationships between different tables to determine what CIs should be counted. Can you purchase subscriptions to both ITOM Visibility and ITOM Discovery? Because ITOM Discovery is a subset of ITOM Visibility, you can purchase subscriptions only to one of them, not both. What is ITOM Health? The ServiceNow® ITOM Health product includes the ServiceNow® Event Management and the ServiceNow® Health Log Analytics applications, which help you to track and maintain the health of services in your organization. ITOM Health was enhanced and updated in the Rome release. You can purchase ITOM Health, or a more comprehensive package, ITOM Predictive AIOps, which includes ITOM Health and Health Log Analytics. ITOM Health reports the number of CIs, where it captures alerts, events, and metric data. ITOM Health reports the CI count for all CI categories. How are ITOM Health licenses counted? Events? When events are received by ITOM Health, an entry will either be added or updated in the Event Management License Usage (em_unique_nodes) table based on the monitored target specified in the health message. We attempt to link the License Usage entry to its corresponding CMDB CI; if a corresponding CI cannot be found for a monitored target, the License Usage entry will be assigned the type Unknown. As of Paris Patch 2, the CI association for licensing is based on the CI ultimately bound to the Alert, which may involve additional binding logic, and therefore can reduce the number of Unknown entries. Additionally, events that do not get promoted to the Alert stage will not update the License Usage, effectively ignoring sources for licensing whose events are ignored. Entries in the Event Management License Usage table are removed once they have not been updated for 365 days. Note that the Event Management License Usage table was originally built for the Node-based model, and is still used to support customers on that legacy model. The Is Licensable column only applies to the Node-based licensing model. In our daily counts, we filter entries in the License Usage table by their linked CIs (if they are of an effective licensable class) meeting the following criteria at that moment: Duplicate of (duplicate_of) is emptyStatus (install_status) is not retired (7), stolen (8) or absent (100)For cmdb_ci_vm_instances (and child class) CIs, we filter out those with Instantiates::Instantiated By or Virtualizes::Virtualized By relationships with cmdb_ci_server (or child class) CIs (which also meet the above criteria), to avoid duplicate counting of logical virtual servers that are represented by CIs of both classesAs of Paris Patch 9 and Quebec Patch 4, for cmdb_ci_virtualization_server (and child class) CIs, we filter out those with Runs On::Runs relationships with cmdb_ci_server (or child class) CIs (which also meet the above criteria), to avoid duplicate counting of virtualization host and operating system discovery patterns that create independent CIs for the same server Note that when upgrading from a version/patch level prior to this change to a version/patch level with this change, there may be a noticeable decrease in subsequent daily counts Daily counts also include entries of type Unknown, which are reflected as Unresolved Monitored Objects in the ITOM License à License Report list. Metric? In the daily counts, ITOM Health also factors in CIs of the effective licensable classes that are associated to MetricBase metrics. These CIs are de-duplicated against the CIs returned in the Daily event count logic above. Health Log Analytics? If you purchase this subscription, consumption is reflected via ITOM Health. Consumption is based on log data and event and performance metrics, received from licensable resource types. What is ITOM Optimization? The Cloud Insights feature is aligned to packaging for broader cost-management use cases. ITOM Optimization v2 subscriptions no longer factor in Cloud Insights usage. The ITOM Optimization product contains the Cloud Provisioning and Governance feature. Using this feature, you can provision private and public cloud infrastructure and services. You can achieve consistent management and cost visibility. The Cloud Insights feature is aligned to packaging for broader cost-management use cases. ITOM Optimization v2 subscriptions no longer factor in Cloud Insights usage.For licensing purposes, ITOM Optimization provides the CI count of the following categories: Servers, Containers, and PaaS. How are ITOM Optimization Licenses counted? Daily Cloud Provisioning and Governance count logic Each day, Cloud Provisioning and Governance counts CIs of the effective licensable classes meeting the following criteria at that moment: Duplicate of (duplicate_of) is emptyStatus (install_status) is not retired (7), stolen (8) or absent (100)Has a relationship to a Stack Item (sn_cmp_stack_item) entry, which itself has the following criteria: Status (status) is not Error (3)Related to a Stack (sn_cmp_stack) entry with a stack_status that is not Unmanaged (7) CIs meeting these criteria are added to the sn_itom_opt_lic_ci table, in order to deduplicate CIs also counted that day by the Cloud Insights feature of the previous ITOM Optimization subscription (see below). Daily Cloud Insights count logic [Note: The original ITOM Optimization package included Cloud Insights, however in Q1 2021 this package was revised to remove Cloud Insights, in favor of packaging this capability via Software Asset Management Enterprise. Therefore, depending on which package revision has been purchased, this may or may not apply.] Cloud Insights regularly processes billing information from cloud providers such as AWS or Azure. For each unique cloud resource instance for which the cloud provider is charging, we use the CMDB Identification and Reconciliation Engine to identify or create a corresponding CI. We create billing metrics in MetricBase linked to each CI for each hour that the resource was running and billed by the cloud provider. Each day, Cloud Insights counts the CIs of the effective licensable classes that have billing metrics in MetricBase from the last 24 hours (which indicates that the cloud resource instance was running in that time period). CIs meeting these criteria are added to the sn_itom_opt_lic_ci table, in order to deduplicate CIs also counted that day by the Cloud Provisioning and Governance feature of ITOM Optimization. Can I purchase licenses in bundle? Yes, you can purchase subscriptions for each IT Operations Management product separately (a la carte) or together (in a bundle). When you purchase subscriptions in a bundle, you get the same number of subscriptions for all IT Operations Management applications covered by the bundle. For example, for a bundle of 500 that covers ITOM Visibility and ITOM Health, your organization receives 500 subscriptions for ITOM Visibility and 500 subscriptions for ITOM Health. You can purchase only one bundle at a time. Can I purchase licenses a la carte? Yes, you can purchase any number of a La Carte bundles. Can bundled licenses be used to cover other applications? Bundle subscriptions cover specific applications. You cannot use bundle subscriptions for other applications, even if these other applications are part of the same bundle. For example, you purchased a bundle of 500 covering ITOM Visibility and ITOM Health, and you used up all 500 ITOM Visibility subscriptions. You cannot use the spare ITOM Health subscriptions for ITOM Visibility. In the event that your organization consumes more subscriptions than estimated, you can purchase a larger bundle. Your organization may consume subscriptions of IT Operations Management applications at different levels. You may purchase a bundle that sufficiently covers most of the required applications. You can also purchase a la carte subscription for applications that consume more subscriptions. Will a CI be counted twice? A CI will not be counted twice for licenses which are in different subcategories of the same parent category. For example: A CI that is used in MetricBase and has alerts associated to it by event management will only count once. When the metric count happens it will deduplicate agains the CIs already counted for event. However, the licenses for different categories are for different products. Therefore, a CI can consume two different licenses if it meets the conditions to two different license categories. For example: A server discovered by ServiceNow Discovery will be counted towards one of the visibility licenses. The same will also be counted for a health license if it has an alert linked to it. What are subscription unit ratios? Ratios define how many CIs of a certain CI category require a subscription. The licensing module pulls the ratio information from customer contracts. How can I see the subscription unit rations? To view subscription information for each IT Operations Management application separately (a la carte), navigate to ITOM License > License Report. As an example, in the image above we see that the ratio for visibility licenses for CI category servers is 1:1 and therefore each server will consume a license. However, we also see above that the ratio for containers is 3:1 which means you need 3 containers to consume a license. Please note that the image above is being used as an example and that these could change in the future, the ratios are determined in the contract. Can I view the list of CIs counted towards licenses? Yes, starting in Rome. The list of license-counted CIs (at the current moment, which may vary from the time of the last daily count) can be generated on-demand by navigating to ITOM License à Report ITOM Licensable CIs. Check the box for the Visibility application (and optionally any others), update the Max Results limit value(s) if needed, add any desired additional filter criteria, and then click Populate licensable CIs. This initiates a job that will populate a table of CIs in the background. Refresh this page until the Status column shows Completed. Then click Show Licensable CIs to open the results table, which can be further filtered and sorted as desired. Example: Navigate to ITOM License > Report ITOM Licensable CIs. The Report ITOM Licensable CIs page appears. Select the check box next to the application for which you want to view licensed CIs: OptimizationVisibilityHealth Select Populate licensable CIs to create a report for the selected applications.Select Yes to accept the confirmation message and generate the report. You can cancel the report by selecting the application and then selecting Cancel Job. Wait several minutes and refresh the page. The Status of the application shows as Completed when the report is complete. Select the application and then select Show licensable CIs. The ITOM Licensable CIs page displays the list of CIs with a license. Is license calculation domain separated? Yes, license calculation is domain separated since Quebec. Can I view the daily counts? Yes. Daily counts can be viewed in ITOM License à License Report by changing the default "Aggregated=true" filter to "Aggregated=false" (as the Aggregated field indicates that the value is a computed 90-day average), filtering by "Application=Optimization", and further filtering/sorting by CI Category or Updated as desired. Problems (PRB1527950) Using domains in CMDB causes ITOM Licensing Aggregator to fail(PRB1567963) Old Licensing Jobs are not getting removed from the scheduler after installing the store application(PRB1569004) Multiple License Usage Records are created when ITOM plugins are installed after 'ServiceNow ITOM SU Licensing Store' app installation Additional Information ITOM Subscription Unit license calculation logicITOM Listing job stuck