Automation has made it possible for organizations to innovate and iterate with unparalleled velocity, and manage rapidly expanding environments with the push of a button. These benefits, however, come hand in hand with a new set of challenges that must be addressed in order for that velocity to be sustainable long term. To be successful, we need not only to automate our processes, but ensure the data generated by that automation is accessible to stakeholders throughout our organization.
In a recent report, Forrester articulated one such challenge in what they call the Automation Paradox. Put simply, as an organization matures its automation practices, the mean time to recover (MttR) from issues can actually increase. In part, this is because as we automate the easier jobs we do, the problems that surface tend to be inherently more complex. However, there’s also the potential for institutional knowledge to decline for systems that no longer require regular day-to-day maintenance.
Actionable Insights with Chef Automate & ServiceNow
A way to address both of these issues is to ensure that as we implement automation, we maintain visibility into what changes that automation is making to our estate. Chef helps facilitate this through Chef Automate, where the data generated by Chef can be aggregated and filtered, providing actionable insights into the current and historical state of our environments.
To get the most out of the data Chef collects, it’s crucial to make sure it’s available to as many stakeholders as possible. Chef has built integrations with ServiceNow to help accomplish just that! Chef’s ServiceNow incident app makes sure that failing Chef Infra Client runs and Chef InSpec audits generate incidents within ServiceNow, ensuring that issues can be addressed as soon as they arise. Our forthcoming CMDB integration will take things even further, by providing a data feed from Chef Automate directly into ServiceNow’s asset inventory, ensuring that it stays up to date as your environment changes over time.
We recently hosted a webinar to provide an overview of Chef Automate’s ServiceNow integrations, and give a live demonstration. In addition to the demonstration, we were fortunate to be joined by Brittany Woods, Automation Engineer at CARFAX. Brittany shared how using Chef and ServiceNow has changed the way CARFAX is able to operate and collaborate, as well as how her team plans to build on that success in future.
If you weren’t able to join us live, the webinar is now available on demand!
Next Steps
See how CARFAX uses Chef to drive innovation
Register for upcoming webinars or check out our library of on-demand recordings
Learn how to integrate your Chef Automate server with ServiceNow
