The Future of Networking at ServiceNow

0:00 [Music]

0:10 thank you

0:11 [Music]

0:13 good afternoon everyone thanks for

0:15 coming here and listening to your story

0:17 our actual Journey before I start how

0:21 many of you are servicenow and Juniper

0:23 customers if you can raise your hand

0:25 so you have a great story you can

0:27 leverage the platform to the fullest

0:29 actions both the platforms that's what

0:31 we're going to talk today and we

0:33 actually the title says future of

0:34 network needs not actually we are on the

0:36 future now we already done a lot of

0:38 Integrations one of the things we do at

0:40 service novels anytime we bring in a new

0:43 technology first thing we look at is how

0:45 integrated it is with our platform so

0:46 that we can actually do more with with

0:48 the same platform with that so my name

0:51 is venkat Lakshmi Narayan I'm part of

0:53 servicenow I've been with servicenow for

0:55 five and a half years went through the

0:57 entire transformation Journey now I'm

0:59 responsible for our internal ITX

1:01 deployment that is all our servicenow

1:03 deployment internally I am responsible

1:04 for that as well and with that I have

1:07 Saji who owns all the engineering and

1:09 operations and then I have Satish who

1:11 heads our networking team

1:13 with that so um today agenda is very

1:17 simple right we started off hey we need

1:20 to transform this whole infrastructure

1:22 we used to have at least one PO on every

1:24 day something will break or and a VP

1:27 will call and say I can't uh connect to

1:29 the wireless it gets dropped and then

1:31 the network name will check and say oh

1:32 everything is fine like the video you

1:34 saw the light is on right but actually

1:36 it's not like working so we said okay we

1:39 need to come up with a strategy how do

1:40 we transform this hypergirl company that

1:43 we need to have a scalable uh secure and

1:45 simple Network and then what are the

1:48 challenges we faced and then how we

1:50 transformed that with juniper and then

1:52 the business outcomes and we also have

1:54 some use cases and Satish is going to

1:56 give a actual demo of how we automated

1:59 the

2:01 firmware upgrade of air peace with zero

2:03 touch Three Zero Strategy

2:06 so I talked about three zero strategy so

2:08 we came up with this strategy sometimes

2:10 when you look at it it's not true right

2:12 there will be outages things will break

2:15 circuits fail the boxes will fail and

2:18 there are incidents will happen so what

2:20 we did is let's let's look for a not

2:22 star say zero outages we wanted to have

2:25 build a network things can fail but our

2:28 user cannot see it so we put instead of

2:32 you know usually being in infrastructure

2:34 for a very long time you always think

2:36 about hey how written I can build but we

2:38 did a paradigm shift we said we're going

2:40 to put user experience first how can we

2:43 provide the user experience then start

2:45 building you know behind the scenes so

2:48 we built zero outages we are not there

2:50 yet but we are getting there and then

2:52 zero incidents we don't want our

2:54 customers or our end users to call us

2:56 and say I cannot connect to this I can't

2:58 access sap I can't do this we want to be

3:00 able to predict and prevent and heal so

3:03 we are at predict Improvement prevention

3:05 state right now but we are walking

3:07 towards self-healing

3:08 um so what we are doing is if we need to

3:11 do that we need to bring all the

3:12 Telemetry we talked about all the

3:14 signals so we said are we going to do

3:16 everything on our platform are we going

3:18 to partner somebody like Juniper to

3:20 actually leverage their AI along with

3:22 our Ai and bring all the Telemetry and

3:25 so that we can predict and heal

3:27 zero

3:31 so it's not being a SAS company we

3:33 thought building a data center or even a

3:36 color takes a long time we cannot

3:38 actually match the growth of the

3:39 business so we said we're going to shut

3:41 down all the data centers so last year

3:42 we ended up shutting all the data

3:44 centers everything is on either SAS or

3:46 VR IIs running on public cloud

3:48 and then we said okay we already knocked

3:50 down one zero what do we do we went

3:52 through zero trust and so we added

3:54 another zero that is where Juniper plays

3:57 a big role for us to be able to actually

3:59 have a zero trust network with that I

4:02 will pass on to Saji to take us home ServiceNow’s Challenges

4:05 thank you very good so some of the

4:08 world's largest

4:10 organizations Banks governments they all

4:14 use service now they look at us to be

4:17 the digital transformation leader and

4:20 for us and with our leadership thinking

4:23 about okay we want to be the force

4:26 driving the digital transformation and

4:28 as part of that we also want to be the

4:29 Enterprise that wants to become a 16

4:31 billion in Revenue how do we how do we

4:34 get there so the work has to start from

4:36 the home right so the strategy that the

4:38 3-0 strategy which was coined back in

4:41 2018

4:41 was precisely

4:44 put to use to deliver that right which

4:48 is uh let's go and address

4:52 our issues first and then we can

4:57 take that learning and transform or help

4:59 transform uh the the other organizations

5:02 right so looking at that network plays a

5:05 key role and you know with all the other

5:08 elements in the in the infrastructure

5:10 whether we are you know reducing the

5:13 data center moving to the cloud uh you

5:16 know increasing the velocity so that the

5:18 organization can move faster we are not

5:20 in the business of you know building

5:22 data center we're in the business of

5:24 building the best software that helps

5:26 organizations run the business

5:28 so we said okay we need to go address

5:30 the network but very typical like every

5:33 organization has this going on right

5:35 multiple vendors High Cost of managing

5:39 it

5:39 zero visibility you know you depend on

5:43 multiple vendors roadmap and then you

5:45 decide okay what is my roadmap some of

5:48 them will come through some of them

5:49 won't come through and then eventually

5:51 what it is going to do is that it's

5:52 going to actually

5:54 you know kill yours roadmap and your

5:57 plans so and if we want to be the the

6:00 best organization uh with the with the

6:03 with the best Revenue the best uh you

6:06 know uh software that customers like you

6:09 use

6:10 our user base has to be super productive

6:13 so user experience was absolutely on top

6:16 of our mind

6:17 so how do we do this right we've been Wireless + LAN + WAN Transformation

6:20 super lucky to that we found uh missed

6:23 uh and we've been using the wireless uh

6:25 you know uh

6:27 technology and we said okay we need a

6:30 vendor that is going to come together

6:32 and tackle and solve the other areas of

6:36 the networking for us and we didn't have

6:38 to look too far and you know we we we

6:40 chose uh Juniper uh and Miss AI solution

6:45 to help us with that so we said okay if

6:48 we want to fix this we want to build the

6:50 network of the future you know whether

6:52 it has to be aired driven the visibility

6:54 has to be sorted out the user experience

6:57 has to be absolutely the top uh you know

6:59 uh agenda item on on our list and and we

7:03 need to be overall uh reducing the spend

7:07 of the network uh you know because we're

7:09 going to be scaling so much as an

7:11 Enterprise that we can't be having an

7:12 expensive Network that you that we that

7:14 we want to operate right so for us we ServiceNow’s Network Transformation Journey

7:18 found Juniper and it was the best

7:20 decision that we made

7:22 we all know that when kovit came and the

7:27 work from home kicked in it was the one

7:30 of the most transformative time for the

7:33 networking industry everything shifted

7:35 from the Enterprise and then the the the

7:37 the the the the users moved to home the

7:41 the entire data usage exploded it was it

7:44 was and the whole remote work uh

7:47 infrastructure had to be kind of coming

7:49 along with it it was a phenomenal time

7:51 so we actually used that opportunity to

7:54 do the transformation on our end right

7:56 13 months

7:58 with Juniper's capability of you know

8:01 doing zero touch

8:03 um automated deployments uh simplified

8:06 uh stack we were able to do this entire

8:09 uh phase one which is the whole Hardware

8:11 uh transformation part completely

8:14 remotely there was hardly anybody that

8:17 traveled to any location besides racking

8:20 stack rack and stack and those type of

8:21 activity we completely did it zero touch

8:23 right the journey doesn't stop from

8:26 there we are now headed into the the

8:28 next set of phases this is where we are

8:30 basically connecting the platforms

8:32 together we are bringing the integration

8:34 into play we are using the AI to the

8:37 core and we are going to essentially get

8:39 to the place where we want to be able to

8:41 see the things end to end we also use

8:45 the term client to Cloud you know which

8:47 is taken from the Juniper side which is

8:49 we want to exactly see what is the user

8:52 experience from the client which is the

8:54 laptop all the way to the application

8:56 that they're accessing whether assume

8:58 whether it's any other any other

9:00 application that they use in the

9:02 Enterprise Business outcomes phase 1

9:03 so that's what we are headed so as we

9:06 got done with the phase one you see the

9:08 you see the numbers right we we not just

9:10 use this to just simply switch a

9:13 networking vendor as we wanted to

9:15 address the you know the user experience

9:17 we wanted to build the network of the

9:19 the Next Generation you said okay let's

9:21 go and transform a bunch of other things

9:23 so people coming coming back from home

9:25 everybody was very used to this whole

9:28 concept of Wireless nobody we said okay

9:31 why do we need wires we don't need wire

9:33 networking in the office right we

9:35 completely got rid of wired networkings

9:37 in the entire Global location at service

9:40 stop right and that helped us cut the

9:43 whole Opex uh and the whole capex that

9:47 we had to invest significantly our

9:50 carbon footprint you know with uh you

9:52 know our closets with multiple racks you

9:56 know filled with switches completely

9:58 sunk down to literally half a rack right

10:01 so so significant Improvement we we were

10:04 also able to drive a significant savings

10:07 because we switched over to Juniper uh

10:09 from from another income inventor right

10:13 so where are we where are we headed what End State

10:15 is the what is the end State what is the

10:17 end game for this whole thing right we

10:18 want to have the visibility client to

10:20 Cloud we want to uh give the opportunity

10:24 for users and operators to do a lot of

10:27 things themselves don't call the help

10:30 desk do not wait for the network

10:32 engineer to fix your problem you will

10:34 get the power to do a lot of things

10:36 yourself so this is

10:39 and obviously generative AI conversation

10:41 AI all those sort of things will be put

10:43 to use to deliver this right

10:45 now

10:47 we know that there is a lot of data out Network State

10:50 there every vendor has data every

10:52 endpoint has data every application has

10:54 data but

10:55 how do we bring this whole thing

10:57 together so as part of a now and now

10:59 program which is uh servicenow

11:02 internally using servicenows platform to

11:05 deliver a new solution we are building a

11:07 concept called Network workspace

11:09 this is where we're going to bring the

11:12 entire data integration uh you know the

11:16 self-service all of those capabilities

11:18 under a single roof right as you see

11:21 very simplified View

11:23 user interaction layer which is going to

11:26 be in the form of a portal or a

11:28 workspace there is going to be the

11:29 platform layer which is obviously the

11:30 service from platform and there is going

11:32 to be integration layer we do a bunch of

11:33 things Juniper enables a lot of things

11:36 but there are there are a lot of other

11:37 elements that we do not have so we tap

11:39 into other platforms to to get to get

11:42 that capability right now where is this

11:45 all you know expected to land us we want Path to 5-Star User-Experience

11:48 the user experience to be absolutely

11:51 five star

11:52 that if you look at from the far where

11:55 we are before the before this whole

11:57 transformation of the network started

12:01 and once once we completed the phase one

12:03 we are now on a single stack environment

12:07 getting that Network visibility

12:09 end-to-end that's why that is not where

12:12 it is going to end right you're supposed

12:14 to go from client all the way to the

12:15 cloud so our journey as when we conclude

12:18 the phase four our goal is that

12:21 the users are not calling the help desk

12:23 users have the capability to do a lot of

12:26 things themselves and we have the

12:29 visibility end to end

12:31 all the way from the user's laptop to

12:33 the to the application that the user is

12:35 accessing okay Automating Firmware Upgrades for Network Devices Using NOW Platform

12:37 so now that I have you know talked much

12:40 about it I think uh Satish is going to

12:42 give you an idea about some of the

12:45 things that we are working as part of

12:46 the next phase is so Satish over to you

12:49 thank you

12:52 so

12:54 so you talked about uh Network

12:56 transformation like how we are done uh

12:58 service now right

13:00 so we have done a lot of uh integration

13:03 between servicenow platform and Juniper

13:05 Mist platform right so combining these

13:07 two great platforms so we are delivering

13:10 a lot of things and simplifying overall

13:13 network operations right

13:15 so let's talk about some of the use

13:16 cases so we are doing uh the ticket

13:19 creation that's pretty much like for any

13:22 network engineer right in the part of

13:23 the operations how to handle

13:26 we have automated the entire process

13:28 creating incident tickets and closing

13:31 automatically for all the Marvis actions

13:34 whatever Marvis action says that okay

13:36 there's a problem with the bad cable or

13:38 some disconnects or DHCP errors DNS all

13:42 the stuff so it is already it

13:44 automatically creates incident ticket

13:46 and try to solve the problem and resolve

13:49 the ticket automatically so we have done

13:51 some of the cool stuff there

13:52 players

13:54 the firmware upgrades so this is the

13:56 most important thing and part of every

13:58 network engineer right

14:01 so traditionally I think we all know so

14:03 doing a firmware upgrade it was never

14:05 easy it was more complex like sap move

14:09 the car tftp all the stuff right then do

14:12 md5 checks very complex thing

14:15 missed simplified the entire process

14:18 right just few clicks

14:20 the upgrade system

14:21 add service now we are taking one step

14:24 further

14:25 so combining these two platforms what

14:28 we're going to do is we are automating

14:30 automating end-to-end workflow right

14:32 completely automated this entire Auto of

14:35 the firmware updates Plus

14:38 we are integrating that with the itl itl

14:40 process the chain process so any company

14:43 chain process is important change

14:44 management right so combining these two

14:47 end-to-end automatic workflow we'll see

14:50 in a demo today

14:54 so for today in demo so Demo

14:58 we're going to show you

14:59 the missed wireless access points will

15:01 upgrade from 0.10 to 0.11 version right

15:04 the same process can be applied for

15:06 switches as well today we'll see access

15:09 points

15:11 foreign

15:12 so this is the end to end the workflow

15:16 right this is development servicenow

15:17 platform so this will

15:20 work with the missed Cloud right if you

15:22 look at all the way from top to bottom

15:23 so this is only a few things here at the

15:26 network engineer has to create a catalog

15:28 request in servicenow platform with all

15:31 the details sell the devices version all

15:34 the stuff then it stands for it creates

15:36 a change ticket send for approval once

15:39 it is approved rest everything is fully

15:41 automated it does the pre-validation

15:43 checks so we run a lot of commands

15:46 output right so before upgrading the

15:48 switches are access point we collect a

15:51 lot of information from the device

15:53 then we store it then do the perform the

15:56 upgrade once upgrade is done with post

15:59 validation collect the same all the

16:01 commands output then compare pre and

16:03 post validation making sure the device

16:06 in a right state right if the pulse

16:09 validation is successful that is where

16:11 we call it as a upgrade is completed

16:13 then everything is automatically closing

16:15 the change ticket ritm

16:18 and hence the entire entire workflow

16:22 foreign

16:26 so here we can see this is a missed

16:28 portal as you all know we have a 28

16:31 access points so they're all running

16:32 0.10 version after the upgrade is

16:35 completed we should be saying they're

16:37 all in running on 0.11 version

16:51 so the first step of this process create

16:54 a catalog request right

16:56 so in service in a platform so we have

16:58 something called gen performware

16:59 upgrades select the catalog request and

17:02 that will open a form and the fill the

17:04 form with all the device type device

17:06 model site devices the current version

17:09 proposed version and the schedule date

17:20 so once you fill in all the details

17:21 submit a request

17:24 so this will automatically create a

17:26 change request right

17:29 so the change request all the details

17:31 what you see here it's automatically

17:33 populated from the catalog that we

17:35 filled in

17:45 so once the change is created okay

17:48 I said two things are manual right one

17:50 is the creating catalog and second one

17:52 is approval process so here we have to

17:54 do that two two approvals one is the

17:56 peer review so somebody in the team the

17:58 peer has to do the pro okay making sure

17:59 the change is good the second one is the

18:02 manager approval so when these two

18:03 approvals are done that is where the

18:06 chain will move into the implementation

18:07 state so when the implementation state

18:10 starts that's where the

18:14 starts next

18:21 so in the pre-validation steps so as we

18:24 talked it is going to check let's say if

18:25 you have 28 devices for every device it

18:28 is going to run set of commands and

18:30 collect it outputs right and store it in

18:32 a servicenow platform in the change

18:34 ticket

18:36 you will see the complete audit Trail

18:38 right at what time it is capturing

18:40 information for what devices you will

18:42 see the complete audit trial of all this

18:43 stuff right so once the pre-validation

18:46 is completed then it moves to the

18:47 upgrade state

18:57 so now the upgrade started so here you

19:00 can see in the missed Cloud portal the

19:02 access points are going through the

19:03 upgrade you can see the status of the of

19:06 the upgrades as well right

19:15 so once upgrade is done

19:17 it is going to do the next step which is

19:18 the post validation right post dial part

19:20 of the post validation it's going to run

19:22 the same set of commands again for every

19:24 device collect the information then it

19:27 is going to do the comparison with the

19:29 pre-validation

19:35 and the same stuff all the data all the

19:38 complete audit Trail you will see the

19:39 all these steps right for every device

19:46 so once the post validation is completed

19:48 then it's a close the chain

19:51 automatically

19:53 once the change is closed automatically

19:56 it also close the ritm request

19:59 and notifies the engineer that your

20:01 request has been completed

20:04 so this is where the workflow ends right

20:07 now let's after this done so let's

20:09 verify let's log into the missed cloud

20:11 and see whether this access points are

20:13 really upgraded to the dot 0 0.11

20:16 version

20:17 as we see here

20:19 all the aps that were connected before

20:21 they are running in 0.11 version

20:29 so this concludes that the upgrade is

20:32 successful the upgraded using our

20:33 service now platform end to end Key Takeaways

20:35 automated workflow so with that I'll

20:38 pass it to renkerchief

20:41 thank you

20:43 thank you

20:45 thanks Satish thanks for the demo so

20:47 this is one of the use cases you can do

20:49 lot more automation on your network uh

20:52 using both the platforms with uh with

20:54 the using the API with juniper there's a

20:57 lot of things you can do and all the

20:58 Integrations You're Building internally

21:00 will be available to our customers for

21:01 free so we'll put it as a store app or

21:03 it will be on the future release so if

21:04 you're a service no customer take

21:06 advantage of those and so um I know we

21:09 went a little over time but I just

21:10 wanted to say key takeaways right when

21:12 you're designing Network I'll link it to

21:13 your business goals what is your

21:15 business strategy how you want to build

21:16 a network and that is very important and

21:19 the next one is we need to build a

21:21 network that actually gives the user

21:23 experience not it doesn't matter how res

21:25 resilient it is not it doesn't matter

21:26 it's all about giving the right

21:28 experience to the user and then the

21:30 third is we want to leverage the AI and

21:33 automation to because I know being in

21:36 the industry for a long time you want to

21:38 say hey can I automate it if what is

21:40 breaks it brings the whole site down but

21:42 the the A and automation has come to a

21:44 state where you can actually safely do

21:46 it with full success that is what we are

21:48 doing today my team doesn't patch you

21:51 know upgrade any of the aps anymore

21:52 manually it's all automated right now

21:54 thanks for having us with that let's

21:56 bring the action man back

21:59 thank you first of all thank you very

22:01 much

22:02 [Applause]

22:04[Music]