Providing robust safety in a cloud setting is a responsibility that any capable ServiceNow Development Company takes very extremely. ServiceNow has established itself as a global leader in digital workflow technology by offering advanced solutions. This article delves into how ServiceNow fortifies its cloud defenses to provide maximum customer protection.
ServiceNow: A Cloud Computing Powerhouse
In enterprise cloud computing, ServiceNow is a power to be contended with. Its platform and ever-various solutions can automate, predict, digitize, and optimize numerous essential business processes within a firm. Customers who avail of ServiceNow development services gain the advantages of a highly standardized, secure cloud infrastructure.
One of the key strengths of ServiceNow lies in its security. The company employs a large, dedicated global security team to safeguard the Now Platform. This team oversees the security program across various domains, including architecture, information lifecycle, physical security, security operations, disaster recovery, business continuity, privacy, compliance, and software development.
Unpacking the ServiceNow Environment
ServiceNow’s environment is a private enterprise cloud service wholly owned and operated by the company. This environment employs a multi-instance architecture, delivering logical single-tenancy by isolating all customers’ data from each other. This ensures there is no possibility of co-mingling of customer data, a risk often associated with shared database architectures.
Importantly, ServiceNow development company instances operate on a single, globally standardized cloud infrastructure. This infrastructure is bolstered by a worldwide support organization, driving to a single set of processes, tools, and governance framework.
Key Definitions
The ServiceNow cloud refers to the globally standardized cloud infrastructure in which ServiceNow instances operate. A worldwide support organization backs this cloud infrastructure.
The Now Platform is ServiceNow’s powerful cloud application platform. It enables customers to link real-time data with activities, tasks, and processes to achieve better work outcomes.
An instance is a discrete deployment of the Now Platform provided to a customer. It consists of two or more application nodes and a single database that stores all data, code, and configuration for that instance.
A Shared Security Model
Security is a partnership between the provider and customer, bearing specific responsibilities. ServiceNow provides customers with extensive capabilities to configure their instances to align with their security policies and requirements. On the other hand, general security responsibilities are split among users, ServiceNow, along with datacenter providers.
Some of the security requirements that ServiceNow has to handle include secure instance configuration, authentication, and authorization across web services, access control, risk management factor data encryption according to specified standards, ingress egress analysis logging concerning cyber–attacks monitoring other than prototyping utilization aspect.
Harnessing Security Frameworks
ServiceNow’s security framework is based on ISO/IEC 27002: 2013. The code of practice is highly integrated with the ServiceNow information security management system ISMS since, as an organization, the certification on ISOIEC 27001 necessitates this. In addition, ServiceNow has been an ISO 27001 certified organization since 2012 and is also ISO/IEC 27017: 2015, 27018:2019, and 27701:2019 certified.
In this aspect, it is possible to note that ServiceNow uses service management which formulated on ITIL process model that accepted all over the world. This approach is used internally for their private cloud set up and a customer-facing support model.
Implementing Security Policies, Standards, and Procedures
ServiceNow’s security program is encapsulated in its ISMS and associated security policies and standards. These policies and procedures are reflected in comprehensive standard operating procedures (SOPs) and other relevant documentation and guidance. These SOPs define the actions that must be carried out in various situations.
Examples of ServiceNow’s SOPs include:
- Security Incident response
- Data handling
- Secure development procedures
- Risk assessment
- Incident management, problem management, and change management
- Access entitlements and review process
- Configuration management
- Vendor risk management
- Human resources and information
These documents are assessed and updated in case of significant changes or at least every two years by a managed program.
Managing Security and Risk
ServiceNow has defined processes and procedures for managing and assessing information system and operational security risks. Regular assessments are performed to identify and evaluate the likelihood and impact of risks. These risks could involve unauthorized access, use, disclosure, or disruption to ServiceNow systems and customers.
The company has a dedicated identity and access management (IAM) team with an active IAM entitlement program that requires frequent reassertion of entitlement and comprehensive review. At least quarterly entitlement reviews are carried out to ensure that personnel have the appropriate logical and physical access rights assigned to them.
Compliance: Why it Matters
ServiceNow undergoes rigorous audits every year by independent third-party companies and government bodies to demonstrate compliance with various global and regional standards governing information security.
Each audit represents a significant commitment and ongoing effort. The accreditors are experts in their respective fields, understanding the different global and regional laws and standards that must be complied with. This rigorous auditing process ensures that customers can be confident in ServiceNow’s excellent security controls and practices.
Physical and Logical Architecture: A Closer Look
ServiceNow’s physical and logical architecture supporting its private cloud is globally implemented. In these locations, ServiceNow’s onsite personnel exclusively provide management, installation, and maintenance.
ServiceNow’s data centers are arranged in pairs, with all customer production data hosted in both data centers simultaneously and kept in sync using asynchronous database replication. In a main-main relationship, both data centers are active, and the data is replicated from the writeable (active) center to the read-only passive one.
Data Sovereignty
Generally, data can be regulated by the laws of the country where it is physically stored and jurisdictions applicable to the data subject. ServiceNow guarantees that data is hosted in co-located pairs, with members either within the same jurisdiction or mutually compatible jurisdictions. This ensures that even in the case of data transfer from one data center to another, sovereignty persists.
The provision of Physical Security and Environmental Controls.
ServiceNow purchases data centers from specialist colocation providers. These operators offer ServiceNow a safe and stable environment in which to operate. The data centers are very secure facilities that have security guards on call 24/7, CCTVs, levels of entry controls, and procedures to enter the facility itself.
The Robust Logical Architecture
ServiceNow’s highly defined and limited environment offers several key benefits:
Automation performs many activities in the ServiceNow infrastructure without any or minimal human efforts. This method helps provide higher efficiency, accuracy, and speed in processes and various sub-systems.
ServiceNow is a platform that delivers customers superior support, scalability, and security. As ServiceNow concentrates its efforts on supporting only a single service – the Now Platform- it creates an exceptionally homogenous environment that makes management and prediction of possible security problems much easier. This is in comparison to highly heterogeneous business environments that typically pose far more sophisticated security threats.
ServiceNow assumes all the responsibility for managing software, services, and infrastructure as well as SDLC. Consequently, ServiceNow has unlimited control of its environment, ensuring minimal supply chain risk. This level of control underscores the safety, security, and reliability the platform provides to ensure a seamless user experience with the utmost minimization of risks.
Advanced High Availability (AHA)
AHA architecture of ServiceNow is a strong system where services are always accessible to the consumers. It offers automated failover features in order to avoid disruptions and reduce downtime. In the event of a service disruption that may compromise availability, AHA architecture is always countable. However, in some instances, backup and recovery methods still have to be of the old-school nature being used alongside AHA for data protection purposes.
Software Development: Security by Design
ServiceNow has a means of development that is strict in adhering to an agile methodology. Along this procedure, a separate quality team provides independent validation steps to ensure the validity and consistency of the product. In addition, the validation report produced by a development team should include security as one of its mandatory signatories to release. This makes it possible to prioritize remediation efforts and integrate security feature requests in the application, making the app safer and more trustworthy.
Final Thoughts
It has had breakthroughs in improving cloud security defense by ServiceNow, which is a leading company. Through an extensive security program that encompasses physical, administrative, and logical domains of the organization’s activities. ServiceNow is adequately prepared to guard its customers’ information from potential threats for their preservation
With its security capabilities and commitment to compliance and adherence to industry standards, ServiceNow becomes a reliable companion for companies that want benefits from cloud technologies. Its proactive, holistic approach to security ensures that the company keeps honoring its pledge to deliver secure and reliable cloud services.
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