Bite-sized Software as a Service is all the rage, but to whom does the information technology department turn when the pieces become a jigsaw puzzle scattered outside its control?

Without ServiceNow Inc’s. platform as the home for its applications, it could not keep everything in focus for IT, said the company’s Chief Product Officer CJ Desai (pictured) during the ServiceNow Knowledge17 event in Orlando, Florida.

“For those applications to deliver the functionality, what do we need to do in the platform so that the functionality can be delivered?” is the question ServiceNow must ask through its cycle of biannual releases, Desai said.

All new features, applications and any acquisitions must be re-platformed into each ServiceNow release, he told Dave Vellante (@dvellante) and Jeff Frick (@JeffFrick), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile live streaming studio. (* Disclosure below.)

Simply listening to customer requests is the first step in revamping the platform. Once ServiceNow understands those demands, it must remix the applications and platform together, which is not always a breeze, Desai explained.

“The applications team will give requirements to the platform; customers also sometimes have requirements for the platform on scale; platform will build the functionality; the applications team will build the features on top of it,” he stated.

ServiceNow code-names its releases alphabetically after global cities, with Jakarta coming up this summer. It is integrating six new applications and 30 major features into the platform, Desai said. Subsequent releases will be Kingston and London.

IT herding multi-cloud cats

The Cloud Management Platform upcoming in Jakarta targets the cloud sprawl resulting from DevOps’ liberal use of different clouds and SaaS apps. It give developers freedom to build on multiple clouds, “but IT will still have a single pane of glass that allows you to look at your resource, mapping, utilization, understanding the cost and the usage,” Desai said.

The base platform enables the single pane of glass, and that is why, despite some customers’ gripes, ServiceNow will not offer features a la carte anytime soon. A full upgrade to the new platform is necessary, Desai said.

In other words, they can’t have their Istanbul and Jakarta too (however, suppressing some new features may be possible).

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s independent editorial coverage of ServiceNow Knowledge17. (* Disclosure: ServiceNow Inc. sponsored this Knowledge17 segment on SiliconANGLE Media’s theCUBE. Neither ServiceNow Inc. nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE