Modern transportation systems depend on reliable, responsive IT operations. As service delivery becomes increasingly digital, organizations like Metrolinx must proactively monitor system health while ensuring issues are swiftly and consistently resolved. A core part of this process lies in aligning monitoring tools with service management platforms—something the customer struggled with until they implemented ZigiOps to seamlessly integrate Operations Bridge Manager (OBM) with ServiceNow.

Customer Overview

Our client is a government agency, Metrolinx, tasked with managing and expanding public transit across the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area. It operates GO Transit, UP Express, and manages numerous large-scale infrastructure projects such as regional rail electrification and light rail systems.

Business Environment:

• Thousands of connected devices across trains, stations, and control centers.

• Hundreds of applications and services requiring 24/7 monitoring.

• A dedicated Network Operations Center (NOC) overseeing infrastructure alerts and ITSM processes.

Technology Stack:

• OBM (Operations Bridge Manager): For real-time event management and correlation across systems.

• ServiceNow ITSM: For structured incident lifecycle management.

The Problem: Siloed Monitoring and Incident Management

Despite having both OBM and ServiceNow in place, Metrolinx struggled with the disconnect between detection and resolution.

Key Pain Points:

1. Manual Event Triage: OBM events required manual review and forwarding to ServiceNow, leading to inconsistent responses and human error.

2. Lack of Contextual Synchronization: Once incidents were created in ServiceNow, any updates made during the resolution process were not visible in OBM.

3. No Unified Workflow: IT teams relied on side-channel communication (e.g., Slack, email) to coordinate between monitoring and service desks, which introduced delays.

4. Operational Blind Spots: NOC operators lacked real-time feedback about incident progress, reducing their ability to understand ongoing service risks.

5. Compliance and SLA Gaps: Without full traceability between alerts and incidents, audit trails and SLA reporting were incomplete or inaccurate.

These challenges not only slowed down response times but also impacted end-user service delivery—an unacceptable risk in a transportation context where uptime and safety are paramount.

Integration Attempts and Technical Barriers

Metrolinx attempted several solutions:

• Custom Scripting: Using OBM event forwarding rules to generate ServiceNow incidents via REST API.

• Middleware Connectors: Piloting generic iPaaS solutions that lacked native OBM support.

• Manual Processes: Relying on operators to manually raise tickets for certain OBM events.

Problems Encountered:

• Field Mapping Complexity: OBM events contain nested event data and metadata not directly compatible with ServiceNow’s flat incident model.

• Poor Error Handling: Custom scripts failed silently, and when issues occurred, there was no retry logic or visibility into failed transactions.

• No Bi-directional Sync: ServiceNow updates (e.g., incident resolved, comments added) never propagated back to OBM, breaking feedback loops.

• Overwhelming Noise: Without advanced filtering, OBM event storms flooded ServiceNow with redundant or low-priority tickets.

These attempts were resource-intensive and unsustainable. The IT team required a robust, scalable solution built specifically for this kind of enterprise-grade integration.

Choosing ZigiOps: Why Metrolinx Made the Switch?

Metrolinx selected ZigiOps for its purpose-built OBM–ServiceNow connector, native field mapping capabilities, and real-time synchronization features.

ZigiOps Key Differentiators:

• Out-of-the-box integration with both OBM and ServiceNow, minimizing setup time.

• Advanced filtering engine to selectively forward only high-priority, actionable events.

• No-code field mapping UI, allowing easy transformation of OBM data into ServiceNow format.

• Bi-directional updates with customizable logic for update propagation and conflict resolution.

• Staging table architecture, ensuring data reliability and easy auditability.

• Custom attributes synchronization, including ServiceNow incident ID pushed to OBM events.

ZigiOps enabled Metrolinx’ IT team to get a working proof of concept within days—compared to months spent troubleshooting previous custom efforts.

The Use Case in Detail: OBM–ServiceNow Integration Flow

Goal:

Enable automatic creation, synchronization, and resolution of ServiceNow incidents based on OBM events, with full bi-directional visibility.

Use Case Flow:

A. OBM to ServiceNow (Event Forwarding & Incident Creation)

1. Event Detection:

• OBM identifies anomalies across systems—network device failures, application crashes, hardware issues—and generates events with rich metadata.

• Events include CI (Configuration Item), Node, Application, Category, Lifecycle State, Severity, and Description.

4.Event Filtering:

• ZigiOps filters events based on defined logic (e.g., Severity = Critical or Application = “Transit Systems”).

• Redundant, flapping, or transient alerts are filtered out to prevent incident overload.

5. Staging Table Insertion:

• Valid events are inserted into a custom ServiceNow staging table (x_ziw_obm_inbound) via ZigiOps.

• This staging area acts as a buffer to transform and clean data before incident creation.

6. Import Set Processing:

• ServiceNow Transform Maps convert event data into structured Incident records.

• Fields mapped include:

• short_description

• description

• cmdb_ci

• urgency

• assignment_group

• source

B. ServiceNow to OBM (Backsync of Incident Updates)

1.Update Detection:

• ZigiOps periodically checks ServiceNow for changes to the incident (status, assigned group, resolution comments).

• Trigger conditions can include state changes or specific field updates.

2.Update Propagation:

• Updates are sent directly back to OBM via API.

• Key OBM fields updated:

• Lifecycle State (e.g., Closed, Acknowledged)

• Custom attributes such as ServiceNow Incident ID

• Comments section for audit trail and NOC visibility

3.Custom Correlation Key:

• A ZigiOps custom action synchronizes the ServiceNow Incident Number into OBM using a dedicated custom attribute.

4. This ensures reliable linking for future updates and prevents duplicate tickets.

Results & Business Benefits

Operational Impact:

• 80% reduction in manual ticket creation by automating OBM–ServiceNow workflows.

• 90% decrease in MTTR, with faster response and better visibility.

• Improved collaboration between NOC and service desk—real-time synchronization reduced the need for status check-ins and miscommunication.

• High-confidence SLAs, backed by traceable, auditable incident-event mappings.

• Increased availability of IT staff, allowing them to focus on strategic initiatives instead of triage and ticket maintenance.

Strategic Benefits:

• Full Visibility Across Systems: A single source of truth for both monitoring and incident handling.

• Future-Ready Architecture: Easily extendable to other integrations (e.g., CMDB, Change Requests).

• Scalability: Handle thousands of events per day without performance degradation.

• Compliance: Integration logs and consistent data flows support ITIL and public-sector audit requirements.

Conclusion

By implementing ZigiOps, Metrolinx bridged a critical operational divide between OBM and ServiceNow, turning two powerful but isolated platforms into a unified, intelligent incident response ecosystem. This case highlights not only the technical success of the integration but its deeper impact on service reliability, organizational efficiency, and user experience.