Case Study

How S&P Global Delivers Same-Day Network Services Through Self-Service Automation with Itential

S&P Global’s Global Digital Network Services team turned days-long network change processes into same-day self-service across 3 cloud providers and 10 data centers – reducing manual effort by up to 90% without reskilling the team or adding headcount.

Challenge

A global financial-information and data-analytics business running on 4 cloud providers and 10 data centers serving 60+ offices – with network service delivery moving too slowly to keep up with application teams, and no appetite to reskill the existing team to fix it.

Solution

Itential as the orchestration platform that spans physical and cloud environments – turning multi-domain network changes into self-service workflows network engineers can consume through APIs, ServiceNow, or CI/CD pipelines.

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Why Itential

The only solution that combined rapid automation development, reusable assets, and a modular architecture across data centers and multi-cloud – proven to work with both worlds without forcing a single tooling choice on the team.

The Challenge

The Need for Self-Service Network Automation

S&P Global, a global provider of financial information and data analytics, needed to accelerate the deployment of new applications and technologies. With four cloud providers and ten data centers serving more than 60 offices, the Global Digital Network Services team needed to significantly improve the agility of multi-domain service delivery to keep pace with the business.

The path forward had to choose tools and technologies that delivered the most efficient path – time and cost – to results, while enabling the broadest set of use cases to be automated. Adoption mattered as much as capability: any solution had to be easy to take on, without forcing the team into a reskilling cycle that would slow down everything else.

Domain experts had to stay focused on engineering challenges, not repetitive request handling. Solving that meant offloading time-intensive routine tasks to pre-built or pre-packaged automations – or to tools that required minimal or no software development.

Three Forces Bogging Down Network Service Delivery

Each one would have been solvable alone. Together they made multi-domain service delivery slow, brittle, and stuck behind whichever engineer happened to know the right script.

Multi-Cloud + Multi-DC Complexity

Four cloud providers, ten data centers, and 60+ offices made every multi-domain change a coordination problem before it was a technical one. Standardizing across that surface area required a platform that could speak to all of it.

Pace of Services Outpacing the Team

The pace of network service requests was bogging the team down. They had to bring the network up to speed without adding headcount and without compromising security – a combination that ruled out most obvious answers.

Reskilling Not an Option

Whatever tool the team adopted had to be easy enough that domain experts could keep doing what they were best at. A long reskilling cycle would have erased the velocity benefit before it ever showed up.

The pace of network services was really bogging our team down. We had to find the right tools that helped us bring the network up to speed without hurting security or adding headcount.

Senior Network Architect

S&P Global

The team didn’t want yet another internal automation tool. They wanted a platform that could span every cloud and every data center, expose itself through the systems engineers already used, and ship on day one.

Why Itential

Why S&P Global Chose Itential for Infrastructure Automation & Orchestration

The team adopted the Itential Platform to automate and orchestrate processes across both traditional physical networks and cloud environments. Itential was the only solution that could enable rapid development of automations, reusability of automation assets, and a modular approach that could support multiple use cases and applications from one platform. Six capabilities anchored the choice.

One Platform Across Hybrid Infrastructure, Built for Self-Service

Six capabilities sat at the center of the decision – together turning multi-domain network change into something a network engineer can request, approve, and consume the same day.

Explore the Platform

Multi-Domain, API-First Across Hybrid

A multi-domain, API-first approach that supports hybrid infrastructure and enables automation across data centers and multi-cloud providers – one orchestration model whether the workload lives on-prem or in the cloud.

No-Code Development & Execution

A no-code development and execution environment that lets everyone on the team build workflows and reusable assets from their own domain expertise – no reskilling, no separate “automation team” gate.

Northbound Self-Service Through ServiceNow

The ability to expose orchestrations northbound to systems like ServiceNow via API or automation catalog – so network engineers consume self-service through the tools they already use, not yet another portal.

300+ Open Source Integrations

300+ integrations, workflows, and data transformation assets in the Itential \ Marketplace – plus the ability to auto-generate integrations for in-house developed systems.

CI/CD & Git for Infrastructure-as-Code

Native integration with CI/CD pipelines and Git – supporting an infrastructure-as-code operating model that treats network change with the same discipline as application change.

Granular API-Call Access Control

An integrated security model with access control at the granular API-call level – eliminating the need for a separate access management process and the risk of running untested scripts or unmanaged access.

The Solution

NetDevOps Self-Service Across Data Centers & Multi-Cloud

With Itential, the NetDevOps team captures service requirements, orchestrates a workflow that meets them, and deploys to production through one platform – across every cloud and every data center the business runs in.

Multi-Cloud + Data Center Orchestration

Network service workflows orchestrated across 3 cloud providers, 10 data centers, and multiple network domains – under one shared orchestration model that engineers can extend without rewriting.

Firewall Self-Service

Firewall configuration changes that used to take days now take minutes. Firewall rule changes dropped from minutes to seconds – accelerating application developers without compromising security.

ServiceNow Self-Service Catalog

Orchestrations exposed northbound through ServiceNow – letting network engineers consume governed workflows through the same catalog used everywhere else in IT.

CI/CD + Infrastructure-as-Code

Native CI/CD pipeline and Git integration – treating every network change with the same discipline as application change, with reusable assets that compound across use cases.

Almost immediately after working with Itential, we started to realize the true value of delivering services the same day without having to go through a reskilling process. We chose Itential because our environment is truly hybrid and their platform works best with both worlds.

Guruprasad Ramamoorthy

VP, Global Head of Network Architecture, Engineering & Operations, S&P Global

The Outcome

Same-Day Delivery, 90% Less Manual Effort

Self-service unlocked a different operating model: network engineers stopped queuing behind tickets and started consuming governed workflows the same day they were requested.

1 Day

Service Delivery Time

What once took days now ships same-day through self-service automation – without reskilling the team or adding headcount.

90%

Reduction in Manual Effort

Up to 90% reduction across multiple use cases – completion times shifted to hours instead of days through self-service automation.

Mins

Firewall Config Change Time

Reduced from days to minutes for firewall configuration changes – with firewall rule changes dropping further from minutes to seconds.

10

Data Centers Orchestrated

Plus 60+ offices served – the on-prem half of the hybrid footprint now under the same self-service orchestration model as the multi-cloud workloads.

3

Cloud Providers Orchestrated

Network service workflows running across 3 cloud providers, 10 data centers, and multiple network domains – all under one orchestration platform.

A Hybrid-Ready Platform Built for Self-Service

NetDevOps workflows now span data centers and multi-cloud providers – exposed as self-service to network engineers through ServiceNow and integrated with CI/CD and Git, with the entire integration investment compounding as new use cases are added.

What’s Next

With self-service automation in production across hybrid infrastructure, the team can now automate a higher level of activities more quickly – and expose them to network engineers the same day they’re built. The shift from ticket-driven service delivery to self-service has accelerated time-to-value for customers and removed a recurring bottleneck for the business.

Continued focus areas include extending the catalog of self-service network services, broadening CI/CD and Git-driven workflows across additional domains, and deepening the multi-cloud orchestration footprint as the network estate continues to evolve.

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