ServiceNow needed a high-performance, globally scalable cloud foundation to power its AI and workflow automation platform.
ServiceNow deployed Azure Ultra Disk Storage to achieve low-latency performance, high IOPS, and rapid regional scalability across 14 regions.
With Azure Ultra Disk, ServiceNow delivers seamless performance parity, 99.99% uptime, and faster global expansion—empowering its AI Platform to operate at enterprise scale.
There’s a quiet force at work modernizing and automating organizations of every size, in every industry—including 85% of the Fortune 500. That company is ServiceNow.
“ServiceNow powers enterprise operations for many of the world’s largest organizations, helping them modernize how work gets done,” said Tyler White, ServiceNow’s Principal Product Management Lead for Azure. “We enable people and businesses to work smarter, faster, and more efficiently.”
ServiceNow delivers this through its enterprise AI platform, which unifies workflows, people, and processes to drive business productivity. For years, the company operated on its own private cloud infrastructure. But as ServiceNow expanded globally and adopted an AI-first strategy, maintaining the speed and reliability its customers expected became increasingly complex.
To meet those demands, ServiceNow needed a global cloud foundation that could deliver the same ultra-low latency, high performance, and reliability of its custom-built, on-premises systems—while supporting the database technology that powers its entire platform.
Several years ago, ServiceNow evaluated multiple cloud storage solutions against strict performance criteria: sub-millisecond latency, high IOPS, robust throughput, and global availability. Microsoft Azure Ultra Disk Storage emerged as the only solution that met every requirement.
“We needed a solution in Azure that could deliver the same performance and characteristics as our on-premises platform,” said Charles McDaniels, Director of Systems Engineering Management for Global Cloud Services at ServiceNow.
Azure Ultra Disk delivered on all fronts. It provided managed disk benefits such as built-in encryption, reliability, and seamless scalability—while matching the performance of ServiceNow’s direct-attached NVMe systems. Most critically, it supported ServiceNow’s database technologies, including MariaDB and Raptor, its proprietary PostgreSQL implementation. These databases power the entire ServiceNow AI Platform and require consistent, low-latency performance.
“As Ultra Disk continued to evolve, we evolved our platform alongside it to take advantage of the newest capabilities,” McDaniels added.
Today, Ultra Disk is deployed across 14 Azure regions, enabling ServiceNow to bring a new region online in about six weeks, a process that previously required months.
ServiceNow takes a rigorous engineering approach to Azure infrastructure. The company uses a hybrid model that combines custom Dell NVMe systems with Azure Ultra Disk. When deploying new configurations, ServiceNow’s hardware engineering team works closely with Microsoft to benchmark Azure against its on-premises environments.
“We go through a three-month validation process, benchmarking Azure SKUs against our internal systems,” McDaniels explained. “We simulate load, test performance, and analyze CPU, memory, and latency results to ensure parity.”
ServiceNow currently deploys E-series, M-series, and FX-series VMs for database operations, with FX-series representing the latest generation of its Azure footprint.
The results have been consistent: four nines (99.99%) uptime and seamless performance parity for customers migrating to ServiceNow’s SaaS offerings on Azure.
In addition to Ultra Disk, ServiceNow leverages a wide range of Azure IaaS services, including Azure Compute, Azure Storage, Azure Load Balancer, Azure ExpressRoute, and Blob Storage for large data sets. These services form the foundation for ServiceNow’s AI Platform, supporting advanced analytics, GPU workloads, and AI endpoints that power intelligent workflows for customers around the world.
Running on Azure provides ServiceNow with more than just infrastructure—it delivers the trusted, high-performance foundation that underpins its AI-driven enterprise platform.
“With Azure Ultra Disk, we can confidently scale our platform globally, knowing that performance and resilience will meet enterprise expectations,” said McDaniels. “That consistency allows our teams to focus on AI innovation and workflow automation rather than infrastructure.”
The partnership between ServiceNow and Microsoft extends across the full AI stack—from infrastructure to data, workflows, and user experiences. ServiceNow’s latest AI innovations, including AI Control Tower, Now Assist, and Agent-to-Agent interoperability with Microsoft Copilot, all depend on the scalable, high-throughput performance made possible by Azure Ultra Disk.
ServiceNow continues to explore new Azure technologies, such as Snapshot backup, premium SSD v2, and new compute options to further enhance cost-to-performance ratios and flexibility.
“We’re excited about the mindset shift this partnership enables,” McDaniels said. “Historically, we purchased and held on to physical gear for years. Now, with Azure, we can pivot rapidly to newer hardware and virtualization technologies—delivering better performance and agility for our customers.”
Together, ServiceNow and Microsoft are helping enterprises modernize work—from infrastructure to AI—on a trusted, scalable foundation built for the future.
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“Now, with Azure, we can pivot rapidly to newer hardware and virtualization technologies—delivering better performance and agility for our customers.”
Charles McDaniels, Director, Systems Engineering Management, Global Cloud Services, ServiceNow
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