7.4: Additional Administrator Resources Flashcards
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Perform Basic Monitoring and Upgrade Functions
There are several ServiceNow tools that may aid you in monitoring performance and upgrading your instance:
* Performance Dashboard
* Instance Scan
* Health Scan
* Release Notes
* Upgrade Center
ServiceNow Performance Dashboard
The ServiceNow Performance dashboard feature provides central access to different graph sets for monitoring the performance of your instance.
* Use the responsive Performance dashboard in new instances.
* View a wide range of platform performance metrics for your instance.
* Time series graphs help analyze system behavior and patterns over selected periods.
The graph sets provide performance data for the following functional areas:
- Asynchronous Message Bus (AMB)
- Database
- Instance View
- MySQL Global Status
- ServiceNow Servlet
- Slow Pattern 387
You can also filter the data in each graph by using different measurements, such as:
- Maximum and minimum values
- Means
- Medians
Use some of these graphs to troubleshoot performance issues or help you tune your system for maximum efficiency. The performance dashboard is feature-rich.
System Diagnostics Stats Tools
To aid in performance evaluation, Stats Tools records statistics for system activities that affect performance such as the execution of queries, scripts, and transactions.
NOTE: The Stats Tools plugin is activated by default . It requires the admin role to activate or upgrade, and it requires the com.snc.jrobin.
Stats Tools adds modules under System Diagnostics > Stats, including Slow Queries, Slow Scripts, and Slow Transactions.
Each module accesses a table of activity patterns [sys_query_pat t ern], [sys_script_pattern], [sys_transaction_pattern].
Each pattern table represents a collection of unique activities. Each collection is an aggregation of executions of that unique activity over all time. Each record provides basic timing analysis with example identifiable details of the activity.
NOTE: To aid in debugging, you can
filter most of these logs by application scope, limiting the transactions (for example, slow scripts or events) to only those transactions originating in specific scopes.
Activity patterns are immediately recorded to a cache and are later persisted to their pattern table. If you flush server caches, then recorded activities that have not been persisted are cleared. The following are examples of pattern records.
- Each time a query is executed that meets the recording and persistence threshold it is aggregated and stored as a query pattern record.
- Each time a particular business rule is executed it aggregates to a script pattern record.
- Each time a particular background job runs it aggregates into a unique transaction pattern record.
- Each click of the New button on the Incidents list counts as a list type transaction pattern with specific form action. 388
Automated Test Framework
Consider using the Automated Test Framework (ATF) to create and run automated tests on your ServiceNow instance after modifying it.
These tests provide enough flexibility to help confirm the instance still works as designed, including:
- Mimicking user actions with no scripting, such as opening a form, setting field values, etc.
- Searching for a catalog item, adding an item to a shopping cart, etc.
- Testing business rules, script includes, etc.
- Using REST requests to create, retrieve, update, or delete records 389
NOTE: By default , the system property to run automated tests is
disabled to prevent you from accidentally running them on a production system. Run tests only on development, test , and other non-production instances to avoid data corruption and outage. 389
Test s include a series of steps that
the test at tempts to execute when run. Once run, the Automated Test Framework creates a Test Results record, which is available through a related list on the test record. 389
All test records are defined with test steps
the individual steps and the order in which the test should execute them. A test step includes an action to take, and the data needed to take that action. ATF provides a default list of step configurations for most use cases and allows test designers to create their own custom step configurations. 389
If a test includes steps that involve a form or other user-interface element
it will run the steps in a browser tab or window on demand or scheduled at a set time. Running tests in a browser is especially useful to watch the test execute in real-time. 389
Automated Test Framework provides these benefits for change managers and developers:
- Reduce upgrade and development time by replacing manual testing with automated testing
- Design tests once and reuse them in different contexts and with different test data sets
- Keep test instances clean by rolling back test data and changes made after each test run
- Create test suites to organize and run tests in batches
- Schedule test suite runs
- Enable non-technical test designers to create tests of standard ServiceNow Platform functionality. 389
