servicenow-business-continuity-faq.pdf

Frequently Asked Questions

about the ServiceNow’s business continuity

management program

trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective

companies with which they are associated.

What is the ServiceNow business resiliency (business continuity and/or disaster recovery

plan)?

ServiceNow has a formally documented Information System Contingency Plan (ISCP)

which describes the recovery resources, procedures, and priorities necessary to provide

seamless customer access in the event a disaster takes place that impacts customer

data at the data center(s). The ISCP is dependent on ServiceNow's Advanced High

Availability (AHA) data center architecture which provides replication and

redundancy. ServiceNow's data centers are arranged in pairs. All customer production

data is stored in both data centers in a pair and kept in sync using asynchronous

database replication. Subproduction instances are only located in a single data center

and are not replicated between data centers. Both data centers in a pair are active at

all times and have identical processing capabilities; each data center has the ability to

support the combined production load of the pair. Each data center has multiple ISPs

coming into every data center cage, redundant network paths throughout the

network, redundant disks in RAID arrays, redundant power suppliers, and many other

hardware and configurations designed to remove single points of failure from the

architecture. In the event of a disaster, ServiceNow activates a failover process that

transfers customer operations to the alternate data center in the pair. From this

perspective, ServiceNow is providing customers with business continuity as opposed to

disaster recovery.

The ISCP is tested annually to validate and improve the ISCP. Additionally, the failover

process is informally tested on a daily basis as ServiceNow uses failover to reduce the

impact of maintenance on its service. ServiceNow's ISCP controls are validated on an

annual basis during its ISO 27001 assessment.

ServiceNow's ISCP is reviewed at least annually by senior management and is available

electronically to all employees. The ISCP is replicated between both data centers in the

pair. Key ServiceNow personnel have been trained in their emergency response and

recovery roles. The executive sponsor of the ISCP is the Chief Product Officer.

The ISCP is based on National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Special

Publication 800-34 ""Contingency Planning Guide for Information Technology (IT)

Systems"" which provides instructions, recommendations, and considerations for

government IT contingency planning.

At this time, we do not have a remedy for dual data center loss, but have geographic

diversity between data center pairs to reduce that risk.

Please refer to the ISCP here:

https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_article&sys_id=aa4c22

a1dbd0dbc01dcaf3231f9619a2

trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective

companies with which they are associated.

Please refer to the ISCP Test Report here:

https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_article&sys_id=e7fca6a

5dbd0dbc01dcaf3231f961992

Please refer to the Corporate Business Continuity SOP here:

https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_article&sys_id=0dbcaa

25dbd0dbc01dcaf3231f961962

Does the business resiliency program include a formal annual (or more frequent)

executive management review of business continuity key performance indicators,

accomplishments, and issues?

ServiceNow's ISCP is reviewed at least annually by senior management and is available

electronically to all employees. The ISCP is replicated between both data centers in the

pair. Key ServiceNow personnel have been trained in their emergency response and

recovery roles. The executive sponsor of the ISCP is the Chief Product Officer.

Please refer to the Latest ServiceNow Information System Contingency Plan - Test

Report here:

https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_article&sys_id=e7fca6a

5dbd0dbc01dcaf3231f961992"

Are formal business continuity procedures developed and documented?

While ServiceNow's Information System Contingency Plan covers the ongoing

operations of the cloud environment, ServiceNow has a formally documented

Corporate Business Continuity Plan (BCP) which describes the procedures to recover

and sustain its business operations. The annual Business Impact Analysis (BIA) includes

the identification of critical resources and an assessment of potential disruption

impacts, allowable availability thresholds, and recovery priorities. When combined, the

operational risks provide ServiceNow with a comprehensive assessment of its business

continuity posture. Due to the sensitivity of content, ServiceNow's BIA is not shared

externally.

Semi-annual tabletop exercises are performed to validate the health of the BCP

capabilities. ServiceNow's BCP controls are validated on an annual basis during its ISO

27001 assessment.

ServiceNow's BCP is reviewed at least annually by senior management and is available

electronically to all employees involved in response and recovery. Key ServiceNow

personnel receive training in the form of detailed, hands-on business continuity recovery

drills and exercises. The executive sponsor of the BCP is the Chief Financial Officer.

trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective

companies with which they are associated.

For more details:

Please refer to the (10914) Information System Contingency Plan (ISCP) here:

https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_article&sys_id=aa4c22

a1dbd0dbc01dcaf3231f9619a2

Please refer to the Latest ServiceNow Information System Contingency Plan - Test

Report here:

https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_article&sys_id=e7fca6a

5dbd0dbc01dcaf3231f961992

Please refer to the (POL0020158) Corporate Business Continuity SOP here:

https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_article&sys_id=0dbcaa

25dbd0dbc01dcaf3231f961962"

Do formal business continuity procedures include the continuity of Information security

activities and processes (e.g., intrusion detection, vulnerability management, log

collection)?

As part of ServiceNow's High Availability offering, in the event that a primary colocation

data center becomes unavailable, the secondary colocation data center will resume

the functions with live data.

For more details:

Please refer to the Advance High Availability (AHA) whitepaper here:

https://www.servicenow.com/content/dam/servicenow-assets/public/en-us/doc-

type/resource-center/white-paper/wp-sn-advanced-high-availability-architecture.pdf"

Do formal business continuity procedures include the continuity of IT operations

activities and processes (e.g., network operations, data center operations, help desk)?

ServiceNow has documented Corporate Business Continuity SOP for continuity of

operational activities and processes including IT. ServiceNow has customer support

offices located around the globe to provide 24/7, follow-the-sun support for

ServiceNow's customers. Major support locations are San Diego, CA; Orlando, FL;

London, United Kingdom; Amsterdam, Netherlands; Sydney, Australia. Incidents and

problems reported by customers, are recorded and tracked in HI, ServiceNow's

customer facing internal instance of our product.

Does the overall management of critical response and recovery include roles and

responsibilities for those who invoke and execute the plan?

trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective

companies with which they are associated.

ServiceNow Control:

ISCP documentation includes the roles and responsibilities for those who invoke and

execute the plans.

For more details:

Please refer to the (10914) Information System Contingency Plan (ISCP) here:

https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_article&sys_id=aa4c22

a1dbd0dbc01dcaf3231f9619a2

Please refer to the Latest ServiceNow Information System Contingency Plan - Test

Report here:

https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_article&sys_id=e7fca6a

5dbd0dbc01dcaf3231f961992

Does the overall management of critical response and recovery include alternate and

diverse means of communications in the event standard communication channels are

unavailable?

"ServiceNow Control:

ISCP documentation includes Appendix F Alternate Site And Telecommunications.

Additionally, section 3.2 Notification covers multiple communication channels to be

used for internal communication and notification to customers.

For more details:

Please refer to the (10914) Information System Contingency Plan (ISCP) here:

https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_article&sys_id=aa4c22

a1dbd0dbc01dcaf3231f9619a2 "

Is there a periodic (at least annual) review of your Business Resiliency procedures?