One of the major SnowMirror benefits is the ability to use it as a part of a disaster recovery plan. From the very first version of SnowMirror it is possible to synchronize data stored in ServiceNow tables. But how about the attached files? Welcome to SnowMirror 2.6. The most important new feature is the ability to synchronize the ServiceNow attachments onto a file system which allows to keep copies of documents stored in ServiceNow on their on-premise machine and use it as a part of a business continuity plan.
Attachment Sync Type
Our customers requested this feature to be able to get to the files in an easier way than obtaining them from a replicated sys_attachment_doc table. Almost all of the voting users leverage SnowMirror and a part of their business continuity plan. What if ServiceNow is down for a long time? How to get to the business critical data? Let’s say change management process data? Even with the older SnowMirror releases it was possible to replicate the change_request table. But what about the attached documents? Impact analysis, cost calculations, plans, etc.?
Attachment replication works very similar to the standard table replication with one important difference. Instead of database the files are stored on a file system. It allows to set up a synchronization of attachments of a certain table and to schedule a regular incremental load. So the process it then very simple:
- Choose a table (e.g. incident) to sync attachments to the records of this table
- Specify other options such as detailed filter
- Configure scheduler (e.g. to download new attachments every day at 3AM)
The files are downloaded onto a file system where each record (e.g. incident) is a folder and attachments are files inside this folder:
/opt/mirror/incident/INC000001/impact_analysis.docx
/opt/mirror/incident/INC000001/screenshot02.png
/opt/mirror/incident/INC000343/catalina.2015-01-25.log
