Cohesity ServiceNow Integration

User Guide
Version 5.1.2

Copyright © Cohesity 2022

ABSTRACT

The Cohesity ServiceNow (SNOW) plugin integrates ServiceNow with Cohesity DataPlatform. The main
goal of this plugin is to execute the workflows of the Cohesity Data Platform such as data protection,
cloning and recovery from ServiceNow. The ServiceNow plugin also lets you manage alerts using webhooks
which is a common and an important part of IT Service Management (ITSM).
The Cohesity ServiceNow Integration Installation and Configuration Guide describes the process to help
you set up and configure the SNOW plugin.
Contents

Introduction 4
Audience 4
Plugin Requirements 5
Features 5
What’s New 6
Latest Release: v5.1.2 6
Previous Releases 6
Software Requirements 7
Process Overview 7
Inventory Management 8
Role-Based Access Control 8
CI Relationship and Dependency Views 9
Cohesity SNOW Tasks 13
Cohesity Catalog 13
Protection Source 14
Data Protection 14
Recovery/Clone 14
SNOW Workflows 15
Register a Source 15
Unregister a Source 16
Create New Protection Job 16
Environment: vCenter 16
Environment: Physical Server (block-based) 16
Environment: Physical Server (file-based) 17
Environment: MSSQL Database 17
Environment: Oracle Database 17
Protect VM 17

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 Unprotect VM 18
Delete Protection Job 18
Recover VM 19
Clone VM 19
Move VM 20
Recover Database 20
Clone Database 21
Run Job 21
Recover Files/Folders 21
Approvals 23
Cohesity Alert Incident Management 23
Resolve Incident 24
Resolve Event 24
Dashboard 25
Cohesity Logs for Troubleshooting 26
Your Feedback 29
About Cohesity 29

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Introduction
The Cohesity ServiceNow (SNOW) plugin fetches data from DataPlatform and facilitates performing
various operations such as protecting, recovering, and cloning VMs in ServiceNow using a secure network.
See ServiceNow platform for more details.

The following figure illustrates how DataPlatform integrates with ServiceNow.

Cohesity DataPlatform integrates with ServiceNow through the REST API to simplify data protection and
data management on VMs including workflow automation, backup, and recovery and so on.

Audience
The reader of the Cohesity SNOW plugin guide must be familiar with the following:

● User Interface of ServiceNow

● Cohesity DataPlatform and DataProtect

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Plugin Requirements
Our application requires the following ServiceNow plugin(s) to access a specific dashboard in the
application. Before accessing the application, the user should install the following plugin(s) in the instance.
● Content Management
● Discovery
● Event Management (Optional. Requires when the user needs to manage alerts through event
management)

Features
The Cohesity ServiceNow plugin offers the following features:
● Supports a multi-cluster environment
● Inventory Management
● Availability of Service Catalog with Protection Source, Data Protection, and Recovery and Clone
workflows
Note: The workflows are supported for vCenter and physical sources
● Option to register and unregister a vCenter and physical server
● Workflow Management such as protect VMs, recover VMs, clone VMs, recover files and folders,
and creating protection jobs
● CI Relationships between the relevant resources
● Incident management & Event management through Webhooks

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What’s New
Latest Release: v5.1.2
VERSION WHAT’S NEW REVISION DATE
v5.1.2 ● Included last successful backup time for the virtual October 2022
machines
● Collecting cluster’s FQDN and VIPs information
● Fixed an issue on showing alert category in event table
● Fixed an issue while creating protection job for physical
server

Previous Releases
VERSION WHAT’S NEW REVISION DATE
v5.1.1 ● Fixed an issue related to discovery of cluster resources July 2022
Fixed an issue in sending webhook/incident management to
the instance
v5.1 ● Supports MSSQL and Oracle database workflows April 2022
v5.0 ● Inventory Management December 2021
● Cluster Summary
● CI Relationships
● RBAC support for VMware environment
● Removed dependency of Event Management
v4.2 ● Cohesity alert management through ServiceNow Incident January 2021
or Event
v4.1 ● Option to schedule the recovery and clone workflow at a July 2020
specific time slot
● Optimization of the search files/folders results
● Displaying the file size while restoring the file/folder
● Resolving alerts through ServiceNow on a multi-node
cluster environment
● Few minor bug fixes
v4.0 ● Cohesity Alert Management through Webhook April 2020
configuration
● Simplified cluster synchronization and discovery
processes
● Service Catalog for workflow process

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 v3.0 ● Multi-cluster support November 2019
● Registering/Unregistering of Protection sources
● Simplified Protection job creation process directly from
ServiceNow which replaces the earlier process of creating
it in the Cohesity cluster and then syncing the jobs
● Protection of Virtual Server and Physical Server (Block-
based & File-based)
v2.0 ● Update and modernized dashboard for the plugin with May 2019
few bug fixes
v1.0 ● First draft released December 2018

Software Requirements
COHESITY SNOW
SERVICENOW RELEASE
PLUGIN VERSION COHESITY DATAPLATFORM
VERSION

5.1.2 Quebec, Rome, and San-Diego 6.5.x or higher

5.1.1 Quebec, Rome, and San-Diego 6.5.x or higher

5.1.0 Quebec, Rome, and San-Diego 6.5.x or higher

5.0.0 Paris, Quebec, and Rome 6.5.x or higher

4.2.0 New York, Orlando, and Paris 6.3.x or higher

4.1.0, 4.0.0 Madrid, New York, and Orlando 6.3.x or higher

2.0.0, 3.0.0 Madrid and New York 6.2.x or higher

Note:
● Alert management using Webhook is supported in Cohesity cluster version 6.3.x or higher
● Webhook/Incident management is not supported in Cohesity cluster version 6.5 and 6.5.1

Process Overview
The overall process of working with the SNOW plugin is as follows:

1. Install the Cohesity SNOW plugin along with the MID server configuration
2. Add ServiceNow users and assign to appropriate groups

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 3. Run Fix Script if the application is upgraded to any new version from v2 to v1
4. After upgrading the application, discover the cluster manually for latest field changes to reflect
5. Configure Cohesity clusters in SNOW for:
● Discovery of resources (vCenter, Physical Server, MSSQL, and Oracle)
● Webhook configuration
● Discovery and Webhook.
(Refer: Cohesity ServiceNow Integration-Installation and Configuration Guide)
6. Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
7. Execute workflows in SNOW as described in Cohesity SNOW Tasks
8. Resolve alerts.

Inventory Management
Inventory Management helps you view the configured cluster information and discover the available
sources. It summarizes information with cluster versions, storage capacity, DNS types, node IPs, etc.

The user can view the information through the following within Inventory Management:

● Cluster Summary: The Cluster Summaries view lists all the configured and available cluster
summaries under ServiceNow.
● Cluster Nodes: The Cluster Nodes View lists all the nodes present in the available clusters.
● Protection Sources: The Inventory Sources View lists all the registered protection sources on the
configured Cohesity clusters irrespective of the environment type.

Role-Based Access Control

Cohesity Admin users can assign different groups to Virtual Machines that are discovered from the
configured cluster. On assigning groups to the virtual machines, those virtual machines can be accessible
only by assigned group members and workflows such as protect, unprotect, recover and cloning of that
virtual machine can be performed only by the group members of the assigned group. Members of the
Cohesity Admin group can access all the resources irrespective of assigned groups.

NOTE: Assigned group should be a part of Cohesity User group, in order to access the cohesity application
and resources assigned to them.

To assign a group to virtual machines:

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 1. Navigate to Virtual Machines > Virtual Machines List
2. Select the virtual machines that want to be supported by group
3. Click Assign Group.
4. Select the group that want to be assigned
5. Click on Save

Refresh the table to check the newly assigned support group.

CI Relationship and Dependency Views

Once the discovered resources from the configured Cohesity Clusters are populated in the respective
ServiceNow CMDB table, CI relationships will be built between the following tables with corresponding
relationship type.

PARENT TABLE CHILD TABLE RELATIONSHIP

Cluster Summary Cluster Nodes Owns::Owned by
(x_hesin_cohesity_c_cluster_summar (x_hesin_cohesity_c_cluster_nodes)
y_details)
Protection Source Cluster Summary Registered on::Has
(x_hesin_cohesity_c_inventory_sourc (x_hesin_cohesity_c_cluster_summar registered
e) y_details)
Virtual Machines Source Hosted on::Hosts
(x_hesin_cohesity_c_virtual_machine (x_hesin_cohesity_c_source)
)
Physical Volumes Source Hosted on::Hosts
(x_hesin_cohesity_c_physical_volume (x_hesin_cohesity_c_source)
s)
Protection Job Virtual Machines Protects::Protected by

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 (x_hesin_cohesity_c_protection_jobs) (x_hesin_cohesity_c_virtual_machine
)
Protection Job Source (Physical Server) Protects::Protected by
(x_hesin_cohesity_c_protection_jobs) (x_hesin_cohesity_c_source)
Protection Job Job Run details Runs on::Run
(x_hesin_cohesity_c_protection_jobs) (x_hesin_cohesity_c_job_run_details)

Fig: Represents diagrammatic view of CI relationship

The Dependency Views map shows the relationship between discovered resources. To view the
Dependency Views map:
1. Navigate to the CMDB table, whose relationship needs to be viewed
2. Select the resources in the CMDB table
3. Resource form will contain a list of related items.
4. Click on the icon shown near the Related Items column

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 5. On selecting the ‘Show dependency views’ icon, it will navigate to the new page to show the
relationship view map
6. On hovering to the link between the resources, it will show the type of relationship between the
resources
The dependency views map shows the relationship between Cluster with associated nodes and registered
sources.

The dependency views map shows the relationship between Protection Jobs with its protected objects
and job run details.

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The dependency views map shows the relationship between Source with its objects and protection jobs
(in case if the source is protected).

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Cohesity SNOW Tasks
You can execute various Cohesity SNOW tasks such as registering a source, protecting VMs, physical
servers and other workflows using one of the following methods:
● Using Cohesity Catalog
● Using the UI options available in the respective ServiceNow database as explained in SNOW
Workflows

Cohesity Catalog
Service Catalog is a structured collection of catalog items and a consumable view of available services and
offerings managed by an organization, which describes the list of services that the plugin is providing for
the user including those available for Deployment.

The Cohesity Catalog is a collection of services available such as Protection Source, Data Protection, and
Recovery/Clone. To access this, type Cohesity in the search bar, and navigate to Cohesity Application >
Cohesity Catalog.

Our plugin provides the following Services:

● Protection Source: Register or Unregister a Protection Source on the Cohesity Cluster. It could be
the root node of a vCenter Server, a Physical Server or Database(MSSQL & Oracle).
● Data Protection: End-to-end protection for your Virtual server, Physical server, Oracle database
and MS SQL database with a single, simple web-scale solution.
● Recovery/Clone: Provide services to Recover/Clone Virtual Machines and Databases (Oracle/SQL),
which have been protected.

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Protection Source

You can register or unregister vCenter and physical servers using the Protection Source catalog as
follows. The protection source can be the root node of a vCenter server or a physical server.

1. Type Cohesity in the search bar. Navigate to Cohesity Application > Cohesity Catalog
2. Click Protection Source
3. Select the environment category as Physical Server, VMware, MSSQL, or Oracle based on the
environment of the source to be registered/unregistered.
4. Select the operation to be performed:
● VMware: Register Source or Unregister Source
● Physical Server: Register Source or Unregister Source
● MSSQL: Register Source or Unregister Source
● Oracle: Register Source or Unregister Source

Data Protection

You can perform various operations such as create protection jobs, delete jobs, protect virtual machines
and unprotect virtual machines.

1. Type Cohesity in the search bar. Navigate to Cohesity Application > Cohesity Catalog
2. Click Data Protection
3. Select the environment category either as Physical Server, Virtual Server, MSSQL, or Oracle based
on the environment of Protection job
4. Select the operation to be performed:
● Virtual Server: Create New Protection Job, Delete Job, Protect Virtual Machine or Unprotect
Virtual Machine
● Physical Server: Create New Protection Job or Delete Job
● MSSQL: Create New Protection Job or Delete Job
● Oracle Create New Protection Job or Delete Job

Recovery/Clone

You can perform recovery or clone operations on virtual machines and databases.

NOTE: This service is only applicable for Virtual Machines and Databases(MSSQL & Oracle).

1. Type Cohesity in the search bar. Navigate to Cohesity Application > Cohesity Catalog
2. Click Recovery/Clone
3. Select the operation to be performed:

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 ● Recover VM
● Recover database
● Clone VM
● Clone database

SNOW Workflows
You can execute various SNOW workflows as described in the below procedures. After you execute
a workflow, it will be sent as a request for approval or will be approved directly. This depends on
the configurations enabled for approvals while configuring a cluster. See Configure Cohesity
clusters in Cohesity ServiceNow Integration Install and Configuration Guide. Users belonging to a
group with the necessary privileges to approve the requests can approve the SNOW execution
requests.

Note: Users associated with the Cohesity Admin or Cohesity User group only will be able to perform
the below tasks.

Register a Source
You can choose to register a source as a Hypervisor or Physical Server.
1. Type Cohesity in the search bar. Navigate to Protection source > Source and click Register
2. Select the cluster in which the source to be registered in the Cluster drop-down list
3. To register Hypervisor source:
a. Select Hypervisor as the Environment and vCenter as Source Type
b. Enter the Source information such as Host IP address of the vCenter, Username and Password
for authentication
4. To register Physical Server Source:
a. Select Physical Server as the Environment
b. Enter the Source Information such IP address of the physical server and Host type of the server
either Linux/Windows
5. To register MSSQL:
a. Select MSSQL as the Environment
b. Enter the Source Information of the MSSQL database.
6. To register Oracle
a. Select Oracle as the Environment
b. Enter the Source Information of the Oracle database.
7. Click Order now.
8. A request is submitted for the catalog item. If approval was enabled for this action in the
configuration page, then the requested item will wait for approval from the user with the
respective group (Cohesity Source)

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 9. To approve the request, log in to the instance using any of the users within the Cohesity
ProtectSource group. See Execute Approvals for details

Unregister a Source
Discovered source of environment type vCenter, Physical Server, MSSQL, and Oracle can be unregistered.
After unregistering the source, all the associated resources of the source will be removed from the CMDB
table.

1. Type Cohesity in the search bar. Navigate to Sources > Protection Source
2. Select the source (either Physical Server or VMware, MSSQL, Oracle) that must be unregistered
3. Click Unregister and click Ok in the confirmation prompt
4. Click Order now
5. A request is submitted for the catalog item. If approval was enabled for this action in the
configuration page, then the requested item will wait for approval from the user with the
respective group (Cohesity Source)
6. To approve the request, log in to the instance using any of the users within the Cohesity Source
group. See Execute Approvals for details

Create New Protection Job

You can choose to protect vCenter, physical server (block based or file based), MSSQL, or Oracle.

1. Type Cohesity in the search bar. Navigate to Protection Jobs > Protection Jobs and click New Job
2. Once the respective catalog item page is loaded, select the Cluster where the Protection job
needs to be created for the available source.
3. Provide the name for the protection job.
4. Make a selection to protect either vCenter, physical server (block-based or file-based), MSSQL,
or Oracle.

Environment: vCenter
● For auto-protecting the source with a higher source level, select Auto Protect as Yes. Then
select the protection level (Source/DataCenter/Compute Resource/ESXI Host) and select
the corresponding source in the populated source dropdown, to be auto protected.
● For standalone protection of a Virtual Machine, select the corresponding source and ESXI
host information.
● Select the Virtual Machine(s) to be protected by moving them from the Available list to the
selected VM(s) list or double click on the Virtual Machine(s) to be protected.

Environment: Physical Server (block-based)

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 ● Select the environment as Physical Server (Block-based)
● Select the Physical Server in the Source dropdown
● If specific Volumes to be protected instead of all volumes in the block, disable the
‘Automatically protect all volumes on the server’ option
● Once it is disabled, volumes in the selected physical server will be populated in the list
collector. Select the volumes to be protected in the server
NOTE: If the Physical Server is already protected, then it won’t be available for protection again.

Environment: Physical Server (file-based)

● Select the environment as Physical Server (File-based)

● Select the Physical Server in the Source dropdown
● Enter the file path(s) to be protected (with comma separated)

Environment: MSSQL Database

● Select the environment as MSSQL Database

● Select MSSQL from the Source drop-down
● Select the databases to be protected and move them from the available list to the selected
list. You can also double-click on the database(s) to be protected.

Environment: Oracle Database

● Select the environment as Oracle Database

● Select Oracle from the Source drop-down
● Select the databases to be protected and move them from the available list to the selected
list. You can also double-click on the database(s) to be protected.
5. Select the Policy and Storage Domain
6. Click Order Now
7. A request is submitted for the catalog item. If approval was enabled for this action in the
configuration page, then the requested item will wait for approval from the user with the
respective group (Cohesity ProtectionJob)
8. To approve the request, log in to the instance using any of the users within the Cohesity
ProtectionJob group. See Execute Approvals for details

Protect VM
1. Type Cohesity in the search bar. Navigate to Cohesity Application > Virtual Machines > Virtual
Machines List.
2. Select the Virtual Machine(s) to be protected and click Protect

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 NOTE:
a. Only unprotected Virtual machines can be selected for protection
b. Virtual Machines from different clusters are not allowed to protect at same time

3. Select the protection job from the drop down through which the selected virtual machine(s) need
to be protected.
4. Click Order Now
5. A request is submitted for the catalog item. If approval was enabled for this action in the
configuration page, then the requested item will wait for approval from the user with the
respective group (Cohesity ProtectVM)
6. To approve the request, log in to the instance using any of the users within the Cohesity
ProtectVM group. See Execute Approvals for details

Unprotect VM
1. Type Cohesity in the search bar. Navigate to Cohesity Application > Virtual Machines > Virtual
Machines List
2. Select the Virtual Machine(s) to be unprotected

NOTE:
a. Only protected Virtual machines can be selected for unprotecting
b. Virtual Machines from different clusters are not allowed to unprotect at same time
c. Virtual Machines from different protection jobs are not allowed to unprotect at same time

3. Click Ok in the confirmation prompt.

4. On confirmation, it will navigate to the catalog item page.
5. Select the protection job from the drop down through which the selected virtual machine(s) need
to be protected.
6. Click Order Now.
7. A request is submitted for the catalog item. If approval was enabled for this action in the
configuration page, then the requested item will wait for approval from the user with the
respective group (Cohesity UnprotectVM)
8. To approve the request, log in to the instance using any of the users within the Cohesity
UnprotectVM group. See Execute Approvals for details

Delete Protection Job

You can delete a previously protected vCenter, Physical server (file/block based), MSSQL, or Oracle.

1. Type Cohesity in the search bar. Navigate to Cohesity Application > Protection Jobs >
Protection Jobs

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 2. Select the Protection Job to be deleted
3. Click Delete Job and click Ok in the confirmation prompt
4. Select whether to delete the snapshot or only the job.
5. Click Order Now
6. A request is submitted for the catalog item. If approval was enabled for this action in the
configuration page, then the requested item will wait for approval from the user with the
respective group (Cohesity ProtectionJob)
7. To approve the request, log in to the instance using any of the users within the Cohesity
ProtectionJob group. See Execute Approvals for details

Recover VM
1. Type Cohesity in the search bar. Navigate to Cohesity Application > Recover > Recover VM
2. Select a virtual machine to be recovered and click Recover VM
Note: Only one VM can be selected at a time for recovery. If multiple VMs are selected, an alert
displays.

3. Select the Recover Points for the snapshot of virtual machines to be recovered
4. If the recovered VM name to be renamed, then enable ‘Rename Recovered VMs’ option
and provide the Suffix and Prefix value
5. Enable Change Recover Options to relocate the recovered VM into a new location and
provide the source details, where the recovered VM needs to be relocated.
6. In case of attaching a new network to the recovered VM, select ‘Attach to new network’
option in the Networking Options and select the network to be attached. This is applicable
only when the VM is recovered in new location
7. To schedule the restore workflow, enable the option Schedule the Restore, and select the
appropriate time slot in the Scheduled Date field
8. Click Order Now
9. A request is submitted for the catalog item. If approval was enabled for this action in the
configuration page, then the requested item will wait for approval from the user with the
respective group (Cohesity RecoverVM)
10. To approve the request, log in to the instance using any of the users within the Cohesity
RecoverVM group. See Execute Approvals for details

Clone VM
1. Type Cohesity in the search bar. Navigate to Cohesity Application > Clone > Clone VM
2. Select a virtual machine to be cloned and click Clone VM
Note: Only one VM can be selected at a time for cloning. If multiple VMs are selected, an alert
displays.

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 3. Select the Recover Points for the snapshot of the virtual machine to be cloned
4. If the cloned VM name to be renamed, then enable ‘Rename Cloned VMs’ option and
provide the Suffix and Prefix value
5. Provide the Source information for cloning
6. In case of attaching new network to the cloned VM, select ‘Attach to new network’ option
in the Networking Options and select the network to be attached
7. To schedule the clone workflow, enable the option Schedule the Cloning, and select the
appropriate time slot in the Scheduled Date field
8. Click Order Now.
9. A request is submitted for the catalog item. If approval was enabled for this action in the
configuration page, then the requested item will wait for approval from the user with the
respective group (Cohesity CloneVM)
To approve the request, log in to the instance using any of the users within the Cohesity
CloneVM group. See Execute Approvals for details

Move VM

1. Type Cohesity in the search bar. Navigate to Virtual Machines List > Virtual Machines
2. Select a virtual machine that is already Protected, and in the Virtual Machines detail page,
click Move to another Protection job
Note: This option will not be available for virtual machines which are not protected.

3. In the Move VM catalog page, the current protection job field contains the list of protection jobs
by which the selected Virtual Machine is protected. Select the New Protection Job to which the
VM must be moved for protection.
4. Click Order Now.
5. A request is submitted for the catalog item. If approval was enabled for this action in the
configuration page, then the requested item will wait for approval from the user with the
respective group (Cohesity MoveVM)
6. To approve the request, log in to the instance using any of the users within the Cohesity MoveVM
group. See Execute Approvals for details

Recover Database
1. Type Cohesity in the search bar. Navigate to Cohesity Application > Recover > Recover
Database
2. Select a database to be recovered and click Recover Database
Note: Only one database can be selected at a time for recovery. If multiple databases are selected,
an alert displays.

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 3. Select the snapshot of the database.
4. Select a Target location.
5. Select a Target Host, if required.
6. Provide the Recovery options based on the selected database environment.
7. Select the Cohesity Network Interface as Auto Select or Interface Group
8. Click Order Now.
9. A request is submitted for the catalog item.
10. To approve the request, log in to the instance using any of the users within the Cohesity
RecoverDatabase group. See Execute Approvals for details.

Clone Database
1. Type Cohesity in the search bar. Navigate to Cohesity Application > Clone > Clone
Database
2. Select a database to be cloned and click Clone Database.
Note: Only one database can be selected at a time for cloning. If multiple databases are selected,
an alert displays.

3. Select the snapshot of the database

4. Provide the required values in the Settings tab.
5. Select the Cohesity Network Interface as Auto Select or Interface Group
6. Click Order Now.
7. A request is submitted for the catalog item.
8. To approve the request, log in to the instance using any of the users within the Cohesity
CloneDatabase group. See Execute Approvals for details

Run Job
1. Type Cohesity in the search bar. Navigate to Cohesity Application > Protection Jobs >
Protection Jobs.
2. Select the Protection to run.
3. Click Run Job.
4. On running the job in SNOW, it will call the corresponding REST API call to trigger the Protection
Job in the respective Cohesity Cluster.

Recover Files/Folders
You can either search for specific files/folders and then proceed to choose files/folders for recovery or
directly click Recover Files/Folders option and then choose files/folders for recovery if the file/folder is
already discovered through the search option.

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 1. Type Cohesity in the search bar. Go to Search Files/Folders under the Recover category.
OR
Click Recover Files/Folders under the Recover category.
2. Select the Cohesity Cluster, where the search operation needs to be performed and enter
the specific keyword of the file/folder you want to search in the Cohesity cluster and click
Search.

3. The corresponding files/folders based on the keyword match will be populated in

ServiceNow Recover Files/Folders module
4. Select the file/folder to be recovered and click Recover Files or Folders
Note: Only one file/folder can be selected at a time. If multiple files/folders are selected, a
notification displays.

5. Select the recovery points for the file/folder which have to be used for recovery
6. If the file/folder must be recovered to a different source, select the Server Name from the
list and provide the username and password of the selected source (in case if the source
type is Virtual Server)
7. If the file must be recovered to a different location, then select Recover to original location
to No and provide the Recover location
8. To schedule the clone workflow, enable the option Schedule the Cloning, and select the
appropriate time slot in the Scheduled Date field
9. Click Order Now.
10. A request is submitted for the catalog item. If approval was enabled for this action in the
configuration page, then the requested item will wait for approval from the user with the
respective group (Cohesity RecoverFile)
11. To approve the request, log in to the instance using any of the users within the Cohesity
RecoverFile group. See Execute Approvals for details

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Approvals
As an admin, you must approve various requests for SNOW tasks such as protect VM, unprotect
VM, clone VM, recover VM, and recover files and folders. To see the privileges associated with
different groups, see Privileges in Cohesity ServiceNow Integration — Install and Configuration
Guide.
Procedure

1. In the Search box, type Cohesity and select My Approvals under Requested/Approvals

2. Click the appropriate record to approve a request

3. Update the request by providing comments in the Comments field, and click on
Approve/Reject

4. After the request is approved, you can view the updated data in the Cohesity DataPlatform

Cohesity Alert Incident Management

In addition to the existing integration of email-based alerts with ServiceNow, a new method is introduced
to enable the ServiceNow platform to receive alert notifications using Webhooks. Cohesity Alerts can be
resolved through ServiceNow Alert management or Incident management, for which the specific
Cohesity cluster needs to be configured with ServiceNow. Refer to the section Configure Webhook.
Based on the alert management type selected during the configuration of the cluster in the ServiceNow
instance, either an event or an incident will be created for the alert that has been generated in the cohesity
cluster.

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Resolve Incident
1. When an alert is generated in Cohesity Cluster, an incident will be created with respect to the alert
in the ServiceNow Incident database.
2. Login to the ServiceNow instance
3. Search Incident in the search bar and navigate to Incident > All.
4. Select the incident to resolve that has been generated due to Cohesity Alert.
5. Alert description and cause will be populated in the respective incident record.
6. Select the Caller from the reference table.
7. Select the Resolution Code and provide the Resolution notes under the Resolution Information
section.
8. Once all the required details are provided, click Resolve.

On resolving the incident, it will call the corresponding REST client API to start the process for resolving
the selected incident in the Cohesity Cluster and display the status message of the resolution process.

Resolve Event
Before resolving an event, ensure that the corresponding business rule is activated. To activate business
rules,
1. Login to ServiceNow instance
2. Navigate to System Definition > Business Rules
3. Search for CohesityResolveAlert
4. Click on Active and save the business rule

To resolve the event,

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 1. When an alert is generated in Cohesity Cluster, an event will be created with respect to the alert in
the ServiceNow Event database, which will create a respective alert also in the ServiceNow alert
database.

2. Login to the ServiceNow instance

3. Search Events in the search bar and navigate to Event Management > All Events.
4. Filter the records whose Source is Cohesity, for easy search.
5. Select the event to be resolved, which has been generated through the Cohesity webhook.
6. Alert description and cause will be populated in the respective event record.
7. Open the associated alert for the event.

8. To resolve an event/alert, click Close.

9. On closing the alert, it will call the corresponding REST client API to start the process for resolving
the selected alert in the Cohesity Cluster and display the status message of the resolution process
and the respective event state will be marked as processed.

Dashboard
The Cohesity Dashboard will be visible to those with the role of Cohesity Admin or Cohesity User
group. You can choose a cluster from the drop down to display details specific to that cluster in the
Dashboard.

1. Navigate to Cohesity Application > Dashboard.

● Protection Jobs - Reporting values of the Job can be filtered out for a specific cluster by selecting
the cluster in the interactive filter and applying it.
NOTE: Once the application is installed/imported, select ‘Cohesity Protection Job’ under the
Dashboard to access the Protection Job dashboard.

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 a. Running – Total count of triggered jobs that are currently in the Running state
b. Success – Total count of triggered job, that ends with Success
c. Cancelled – Total count of triggered job, that has been cancelled
d. Warnings – Total count of triggered job, that ends with Warning
e. Errors – Total count of triggered job, that ends with Failed state
f. SLA Compliance – Total count of Protection job, whose SLA is passed
g. Total Job runs – Donut chart that shows the status of Protection jobs in total
h. Job Runs (last 24 Hrs) – Bar chart that shows the status of the protection job that has been
triggered in last 24 hours in 24 hours’ time format
i. Job Details – Table that shows the available protection job information in the Cohesity cluster
● Storage Stats - Doughnut chart that shows the usage and availability of Storage per cluster that
has been configured in the plugin.
● Virtual Machines-Protection Summary - Bar chart that shows the overall count of the VM
protected and unprotected
● Request & Approval - This dashboard displays any workflows execution requests for approvals
and other related data
● Alerts Summary – Pie Chart that shows the state of the Incident count that has been generated
through Configured Cohesity Webhook Alert

Cohesity Logs for Troubleshooting

You can access the Cohesity Logs to analyze and debug the problems logged.
The Cohesity Logs can be accessed in the following ways:
● The logs can be seen under Cohesity Application > Cohesity Logs > Cohesity Logs in the
ServiceNow instance. System logs can be accessed only by the ServiceNow System
Administrator.
● Navigate to the folder where the MID server is installed/configured. The MID server folder
agent/logs/agent0.log.0 file will be populated with debug logs in that location.

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To enable the debug logs in System logs:
1. Log in to the ServiceNow instance with system admin credentials
2. Navigate to the System Properties table by typing ‘sys_properties.list’ in the left navigation bar.
3. Click New. Enter Suffix as ‘logging.verbosity’
4. Select the Type as choice list and enter the following choices in the Choices field
Debug=debug,Info=info,Warn=warn,Error=error
5. Set the Value field as debug. Enable Ignore cache and Private
6. Save the property
Now, the System logs will start to capture the debug logs.
To enable the debug logs in MID server:
1. Log in to the ServiceNow instance with system admin credentials.
2. Navigate to MID Server > Servers.
3. Select the MID server in which the debug log must be enabled.
4. Under the Configuration Parameters tab, click New.
5. Select the Parameter Name as ‘debug.logging (Debug logging enabled. Default: false)’ and set
the Value as ‘true’.
6. Click Submit.
Now, the MID server logs will start to capture the debug logs.
The following failure modes are captured in the Cohesity application:
Case 1. If credentials are not matching (may be invalid username/password combo).
Solution: To resolve, you must update the configured cluster with valid username/password or
domain details and retry.
Case 2. If the discovery of a configured cluster fails with ‘Login Failed’ even if the credential of the
cluster provided is correct.
Solution: To resolve, restart the mid server that has been assigned to the specified cluster and try to
discover the cluster again. This may happen in the Paris and in the Orlando version of the ServiceNow
instance.
Case 3. If the http request is not correct.
Solution: This could happen if the cluster is not reachable or if the cluster is down. To resolve, check
the cluster status and restart accordingly.
Case 4. If the discovery fails with ‘Login Failed’ and with MID server log error as
‘java.net.SocketException: Socket Closed’
Solution: SSL certificate needs to be uploaded to the MID server keystore (Refer: Installation and
Configuration Guide document)

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Case 5. If the MID server is down or the MID server is not able to reach the Cohesity environment.
The error displayed is as follows:
Error: 'Exception occured, com.glide.ecc.ECCResponseTimeoutException: No response for ECC
message request with sysid=76bda8e32f7990102e12ae5df699b6cc after waiting for 30 seconds in
ECC Queue'.
Solution: This might be caused if the MID server is down. Make sure whether the MID server is up
and running.
Case 6: If the webhook is configured and cohesity fails to send webhook to ServiceNow with an error
message ‘{"error": {"message":"User Not Authenticated","detail":"Required to provide Auth
information"},"status":"failure"}’, even the configured ServiceNow credentials are correct. Please
make sure the options configured in cohesity cluster is as below based on cluster version. Please
make sure cluster with 6.5.1x or higher should not contain any escaping characters (\) for special
characters.
Cluster Version Webhook Options
6.4.x -u mid\_server:abcd\@123
6.5.1x or higher -u mid_server:abcd@123

This can be done either manually in the cohesity cluster or through Update Webhook option available
for each configured cluster in the Configuration module.

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About Cohesity
Cohesity ushers in a new era in data management that solves a critical challenge facing businesses today:
mass data fragmentation. The vast majority of enterprise data — backups, archives, file shares, object
stores, and data used for dev/test and analytics — sits in fragmented infrastructure silos that makes it
hard to protect, expensive to manage, and difficult to analyze. Cohesity consolidates silos onto one web-
scale platform, spanning on-premises, cloud, and the edge, and uniquely empowers organizations to run
apps on that platform — making it easier than ever to back up and extract insights from data. Cohesity is
a 2019 CNBC Disruptor and was named a Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum.

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