NCM Self-Service 4.3: When Automation Starts Thinking Like a Platform

NCM Self-Service 4.3 signals a meaningful evolution in how the platform positions itself. It reinforces intentional automation design over assumption-based automation.
Not through flashy features or UI changes, but through decisions that clearly reflect a more platform-centric mindset.

This release is less about expanding what Self-Service can do, and more about strengthening how it fits into real enterprise environments.

Automation without implicit assumptions

Earlier versions of Self-Service often relied on an implicit assumption. That the automation engine could directly reach every system it needed to interact with.

In practice, this assumption rarely holds.

Private networks, segmented environments, restricted APIs, external vaults. These are not edge cases. They are the default in most enterprise platforms.

With version 4.3, tunnels become a first-class concept.
Automation no longer depends on direct network visibility. Connectivity is now explicit, controlled, and intentionally designed.

This is not just a connectivity feature. It is a design statement.
Self-Service is no longer optimized only for flat networks. It is now capable of operating inside constrained and regulated environments without forcing architectural compromises.

Service accounts as a design signal

Another important change in 4.3 is support for service account authentication when adding remote Prism Central instances.

Historically, Self-Service integrations often relied on user-based credentials. Even when technically supported, this model never aligned well with enterprise security principles.

Service accounts change that.

They introduce a clean separation between human identity and automation identity.
They improve auditability.
They reduce operational risk.

The presence of a system-defined minimal role is especially telling. It shows an explicit intent to treat automation as a governed platform component, not as a convenience layer on top of user access.

This is a small feature on paper. Architecturally, it is a meaningful one.

Global variables and platform discipline

Variable management has long been a pain point for anyone using Self-Service at scale.

Variables were often duplicated across blueprints and runbooks. Reuse was possible, but fragile. Consistency relied more on discipline than on structure.

Self-Service 4.3 introduces globally managed variables, scoped by project and reusable across automation entities.

This does not dramatically change how blueprints are authored.
It dramatically changes how they are maintained.

Centralized variables reduce duplication and enable consistent configuration across projects. They lower configuration drift and make automation designs easier to reason about and maintain over time.
More importantly, they shift variable management from convention to structure.

This is the kind of improvement that matters only after a platform is already in use. Which is precisely why it matters.

Production-oriented improvements

Several additional enhancements reinforce the same direction.

Search inside runbooks and blueprints improves navigability as designs grow more complex.
Execution names for runbooks add business context and simplify troubleshooting.
Backup and restore of OpenSearch indices directly addresses operational concerns introduced by the Elasticsearch to OpenSearch transition.

None of these are features designed to stand out in a demo.
All of them are features designed to support long-running platforms.

A platform mindset, clearly expressed

NCM Self-Service 4.3 does not try to redefine automation.
It refines how automation behaves when treated as a platform capability.

Connectivity is intentional, not assumed.
Identity is explicit, not implicit.
Reuse and governance are supported by design, not by convention.

Even in simpler environments, this release brings clearer architectural intent and more predictable operational behavior. In real-world enterprise platforms, these improvements directly enhance governance and scalability.

This release does not aim to do more. It aims to do the right things, more reliably, at scale.

And that is exactly what platform evolution should look like.