Jackson Shaw muses on ServiceNow, its transformative platform power, and ways it natively connects the enterprise
Building the next generation of identity governance on top of ServiceNow
As I started to look at Clear Skye’s identity governance and administration (IGA) solution, I began to wonder about ServiceNow. Like many of you, I was already familiar with ServiceNow since my last few employers used it for IT Service Management (ITSM). But what was the attraction to building a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution, like Clear Skye, on top of ServiceNow? I certainly understand the concept of building on top of a platform whether on-premises or on a platform-as-a-service (PaaS).
After reading John Milburn’s blog Suite Platform You Have There and Luis Almeida’s blog Why NOW?, I had an understanding of why Clear Skye was built on top of ServiceNow. I’d read the hype, but what I didn’t really know was what was behind that ServiceNow curtain.
What made ServiceNow a choice for companies?
Why would I want to rely on ServiceNow as an application developer or as a customer?
So I decided to spend a bit of time reading about ServiceNow and, yes, watching some YouTube videos. Here’s what I found out about the man behind the curtain.
ServiceNow, the company, is big.
- >$4 billion in projected 2020 subscription revenue with about $2 billion already closed
- >6,200 global enterprise customers including80% of the Fortune 500
- Over 11,000 employees with more than 3,100 in research and development
- Spent $750 million on research and development, or approximately 22% of revenue in 2019
ServiceNow is much more than an ITSM solution.There are now solutions that leverage the ServiceNow data plane, including:
- IT Operations Management
- IT Business Management
- IT Asset Management
- DevOps
- Security Operations (SecOps)
- Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC)
ServiceNow is a leader and a visionary.
- Leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrants for IT Service Management, Integrated Risk Management Platforms (GRC), and Enterprise High-productivity Application PaaS
- Visionary in Gartner’s Magic Quadrants for CRM Customer Engagement Center and Software Asset Management Tools
ServiceNow was born in the cloud and carries more than a decade of experience.
- Global footprint of paired cloud data centers in North and South America, Europe, and the Far East
- A 99.996% uptime
- 95,000 instances under management
- 3 million daily active users
- 20 billion customer transactions per month
ServiceNow has invested in “connected experiences” via integrations with 3rd-parties, like:
- AWS, Azure, Adobe, SAP, Workday, Oracle, SAP, Atlassian, Slack, Twilio, Cisco, HP, Box, CA, IBM, Tanium, and many more companies
- Accenture, KPMG, EY, IBM, DXC Technology, Infosys, Cognizant, HCL, Linium, Wipro, and many more integration partners
ServiceNow has heavily invested in security, trust, privacy, and certifications, like:
- ISO/IEC 27001:2013
- ISO/IEC 27017:2015
- ISO/IEC 27018:2014
- SSAE 18 SOC 1 and SOC 2 Reports
- Cloud Computing Compliance Controls Catalog (C5)Standard
- FedRAMP JAB High p-ATO (for US government entities)
- DoD Impact Level 4 Authorization (for US DoD/IC entities)
- Privacy Shield Compliance
- Multi-Tier Cloud Security Standard for Singapore(MTCS) Level 3
- ASD IRAP Certified Cloud Service
I was surprised by what was behind the curtain.
This was no “Wizard of Oz” moment. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Here’s a company that was much more than I had known, or even imagined.
Would I be willing, as a Clear Skye customer, to believe in and rely on who was behind the curtain?
Absolutely, without hesitation.
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I’m Jackson Shaw, ClearSkye Chief Strategy Officer. I write about Clear Skye, IGA trends, and recent developments related to ServiceNow and the Now Platform.
Clear Skye is a growing, independent software vendor (ISV) sleeping next to ServiceNow. This means we are affected by ServiceNow’s every twitch and grunt. Instead of tweeting every interesting news article or tidbit of information I come across, I thought it might be useful to recap some of these twitches and grunts to explain why we might all be affected or interested. (Yes,“we”, because if you are reading this, then you are potentially affected by ServiceNow’s movements too.)
Continue reading here for answers to questions like, Who is ServiceNow? How big are they?What resources are available to me? Where can I find help? What did ServiceNow do or release today, yesterday, last week, or last month that might affect me, my company, or our partners?
These are all questions I’ve been asking myself since I joined Clear Skye, so I’ll be writing more on why I think they are interesting — and hope you stay tuned. Have questions that you’d like answered too? Email me at jackson.shaw@clearskye.com.
