Modern Financial Operations Require Seamless IT Synchronization

In the digital-first banking environment, robust IT operations are critical to delivering secure, uninterrupted financial services. For ANZ Banking Group Ltd, a leading financial institution with global operations, this means ensuring full alignment between monitoring systems and service management tools. Prior to adopting ZigiOps, ANZ faced challenges coordinating incident lifecycles across Operations Bridge Manager (OBM) and ServiceNow. The manual or semi-automated processes in place introduced inefficiencies and blind spots that impacted IT responsiveness. ZigiOps provided the intelligent, bi-directional integration needed to close these gaps and enhance operational agility.

Customer Overview

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ANZ Banking Group Ltd (ANZ) is one of the largest banks in the Asia-Pacific region. With operations in over 30 markets, ANZ provides banking, investment, and financial services to millions of customers worldwide. Its infrastructure supports a vast digital banking ecosystem with strict compliance and service level expectations.

Business Environment

• Global banking operations with high transaction volumes and 24/7 uptime requirements

• Complex infrastructure with thousands of interconnected systems and services

• Centralized IT Operations team overseeing incident detection and resolution across diverse platforms

Technology Stack

• OBM (Operations Bridge Manager): Real-time event monitoring and root cause correlation across the IT estate

• ServiceNow ITSM: Core platform for structured incident, change, and problem management

The Problem: Fragmented Incident Workflows and Manual Event Processing

While ANZ leveraged both OBM and ServiceNow effectively, the lack of deep, automated integration between the systems created inefficiencies in how incidents were detected, processed, and resolved.

Key Challenges

• Manual Ticketing: OBM events were manually or rule-based forwarded to ServiceNow, leading to delays and inconsistent incident creation.

• One-Way Communication: Once an incident was created in ServiceNow, updates were not reflected back in OBM, breaking the visibility loop.

• Limited Automation Logic: ServiceNow logic transformed OBM-generated incidents into alerts, but without proper synchronization back, context was lost.

• Duplicate and Disjointed Records: Without a reliable correlation key, incident updates and OBM events often existed as disconnected entries.

Integration Pain Points and Attempted Workarounds

ANZ explored initial solutions through custom scripts and basic API connections. However, these faced common technical hurdles:

• Lack of Retry Logic: Scripts failed silently, and error handling was minimal.

• Incompatible Data Models: OBM’s complex, nested event data did not map cleanly to ServiceNow’s incident format.

• No Bi-Directional Sync: Changes in ServiceNow (e.g., state updates, comments) weren’t pushed back to OBM, leaving operators in the dark.

• High Operational Overhead: Maintaining scripts and middleware required constant effort and troubleshooting.

The ZigiOps Solution: Intelligent, Bi-Directional Integration

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ANZ selected ZigiOps for its enterprise-grade capabilities tailored for OBM–ServiceNow integration. ZigiOps enabled a fully automated and reliable two-way synchronization process with minimal configuration effort.

ZigiOps Key Differentiators

• Out-of-the-box support for OBM and ServiceNow, ensuring quick deployment

• CLIP-based bidirectional synchronization, allowing events and incidents to stay in sync in real time

• Support for ServiceNow alert logic, seamlessly transforming incoming OBM events into Alerts, then Incidents, while maintaining backsync integrity

• Custom Correlation Logic, ensuring every OBM event remains tied to its corresponding ServiceNow incident for lifecycle updates

• High availability architecture, ensuring resilience and scalability for enterprise environments

Use Case in Detail: OBM–ServiceNow Integration Flow

Modern IT operations require seamless communication between monitoring tools and IT service management (ITSM) platforms to ensure rapid response to incidents, efficient root cause analysis, and improved service reliability. This use case describes the detailed integration flow between Operations Bridge Manager (OBM) and ServiceNow, enabling automated event-to-incident transformation and bi-directional synchronization.  

The integration helps bridge the gap between operations teams and service desk personnel, providing end-to-end visibility and control over infrastructure and application health.

This integration consists of two main workflows:

OBM to ServiceNow – Event Detection and Incident Creation

In this first phase of the integration, OBM detects critical issues and triggers the process of incident creation in ServiceNow:

1. Event Generation
   OBM detects anomalies or failures in infrastructure or applications and generates events enriched with full metadata, such as timestamps, severity levels, CI (Configuration Item) references, and event messages.

2. Event Forwarding
   Events are forwarded to ServiceNow either automatically via OBM event forwarding rules or manually by operations personnel, depending on the configured policies and severity levels.

3. ServiceNow Alert Logic
   Once events reach ServiceNow, they are processed by its alert management logic. Relevant rules convert the incoming events into Alerts. Based on the alert’s priority and conditions, these are then escalated into Incidents.

4. Incident Creation
   Using pre-defined transform maps, key incident fields in ServiceNow—such as CI, short description, category, impact, and urgency—are automatically populated from the event metadata. This ensures c;onsistency and reduces the need for manual data entry.

ServiceNow to OBM: Bi-directional Synchronization (Backsync)

The second part of the integration ensures that changes made in ServiceNow are reflected back in OBM, maintaining alignment between monitoring and service management systems:

5. Update Monitoring
   ZigiOps acts as the integration engine, continuously monitoring ServiceNow for any updates made to existing incidents. This includes changes in status (e.g., from "In Progress" to "Resolved"), reassignments to different teams or individuals, and the addition of resolution notes.

6. Backsync to OBM
   These updates are pushed back to OBM to keep the originating event in sync with the incident’s lifecycle. Key fields updated include:

• Lifecycle State – Updated to reflect changes such as Acknowledged, In Progress, or Closed, aligning the event status with the incident.

• Custom Attributes – Fields such as the ServiceNow Incident ID are attached to the OBM event to provide a clear reference to the associated incident.

• Event Comments – Any notes or updates made in ServiceNow are appended as comments to the OBM event, ensuring full traceability and operational visibility for Network Operations Center (NOC) and support teams.

7. Custom Key Synchronization:
   ZigiOps ensures reliable correlation using a dedicated field for the ServiceNow incident number, preventing duplication or mismatches.

Results & Business Benefits

Operational Impact

• Streamlined Workflows: Incident creation and updates are now fully automated, reducing manual intervention.

• Real-time Feedback: NOC teams gain visibility into incident progress without leaving OBM.

• Improved MTTR: Quicker detection-to-resolution cycles thanks to synchronized systems.

Strategic Benefits

• Audit-Ready: Every event and incident change is logged and traceable, supporting compliance and SLA reporting.

• Reduced Operational Burden: Eliminated need for custom scripts and manual ticket updates.

• Scalable Framework: Integration architecture supports future use cases, including CMDB and Change integration.

• Enhanced Collaboration: With synchronized views across OBM and ServiceNow, service desk and operations teams work more cohesively.

Conclusion

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By leveraging ZigiOps, ANZ Banking Group transformed their IT operations from reactive to responsive. What began as a fragmented and manually intensive process is now a fully integrated, intelligent incident management ecosystem. With bi-directional synchronization and full incident-event traceability, ANZ has strengthened both operational performance and regulatory alignment—ensuring its IT backbone remains as resilient and reliable as the banking services it supports.