About Service Catalog Integration

Our Service Catalog Integration shows how you can consume Automic Services using third-party applications. This integration provides service catalog-driven orchestration of infrastructure provisioning and software deployment to deliver a complete, ready-to-run service to the requester.

To achieve this, you can integrate your CA Automic Automation Platform with ServiceNow using the CA Automic ServiceNow Service Connector (SNSC), Service API (SAPI) and Authentication Server (OAuth).

This solution enables ServiceNow users to select services published in the ServiceNow Service Catalog that are automatically fulfilled by CA Automic workflows in concert with ServiceNow processes, such as approvals. For example, when a ServiceNow user requests the service 'Provisioning of a virtual machine XYZ', the ordering and approval process follows the definitions in ServiceNow and is finally executed by CA Automic Automation Engine. The user can monitor the progress of the fulfillment via the ServiceNow user interface.

Examples for services delivered by Automic system via the ServiceNow Service Catalog:

  • Month-end close financial process, including incremental provisioning and data updating
  • Copy and restore or duplicate an SAP System, including coordination of process and system shut-down/pause and start-up
  • Provision and deploy a WebLogic domain or cluster with application and data
  • Promote, provision, deploy and initiate testing of software from one stage (dev/test) to the next environment
  • Provision, deploy, change, update, patch, triage, remediate or execute other IT Process Automation (ITPA, Run Book Automation)
  • Document processing with automated ticket creation, updating and closing which complies with ServiceNow processes
  • Consistently publish and execute services with multiple instances of service catalogs

Architectural Overview

Automation Engine (AE)

The Automation Engine contains the workflows which are published as Automic Services via Service API and is responsible for the user and permission management.Automation Engine objects are used to store the workflows and login data according to the Automation Engine object structure.

From the Automation Engineperspective, the OAuth Authorization Server is an external system responsible for user authentication. Automation Engine supports validation of passwords via the Password Exit function.

OAuth Authentication Server

The OAuth Authentication Server is the main component for managing tokens for authentication. It offers standardized HTTP interfaces to remote client applications (for example: ServiceNow) and end users as well as restricted HTTP interfaces for internal components ( Automation Engine: permission management and data store).

Service API (SAPI)

The Service API component provides REST API access to Automation Engine workflows and publishes them as Automic Services.

From the Authorization Server perspective, SAPI is a internal component that allows remote client applications to use OAuth for authentication and therefore has to be able to validate OAuth tokens.

ServiceNow Service Connector (SNSC)

The ServiceNow Service Connector connects ServiceNow with the CA Automic Service API. It reads the Automation Engine services (workflows and prompt sets)via the Service API and generates ServiceNow service catalogs out of it.

Web Browser

The web browser is the user interface for the end user to consume Automic Services via ServiceNow and to communicate with the OAuth Authorization Server for authentication.