Hi Daniel,
> The SN Connector allows SOI to hook into SN, and extract the CI's if any that reside in SN and just like other connectors I can build services and what not.
Correct. The connector works like every other connector: it looks for CIs (of any type) and brings them into SOI for the purpose of modeling Services.
It does not perform any actions regarding Ticketing.
> For opening/closing tickets...
You have to integrate SOI with the ticketing system.
If you make use of the built-in functionality of SOI to connect to ServiceNow, you can configure the connection via the Administration "Help Desk Configuration" and select "ServiceNow". This requires CA Process Automation as gateway engine. And you have to load the provided workflows into CA PA.
Then you can make use of all functions such as "open ticket", .... without any further coding or configuration. It is a generic integration from SOI to ServiceNow.
see: https://wiki.ca.com/display/SOI33/How+to+Configure+a+ServiceNow+Integration
If you don't want to use CA Process Automation, you can use the "Universal Helpdesk API" (in the same Admin part).
This requires coding, because the universal API is only a template that is prepared to connect to any Help Desk that is not supported directly.
see: https://wiki.ca.com/display/SOI33/How+to+Configure+Other+Help+Desk+Product+Integrations:
As an administrator, you can configure a custom integration with any third-party help desk product using the Universal Help Desk API. The API provides a Java source template file in which you can code callback routines that CA SOI calls to acquire information from the help desk. The Universal Help Desk API can interface with help desk products through web services or local calls.
You can also write your own scripts to call a ServiceNow API to open, update, close tickets and call these executables via Escalation actions.
But this is a one-way connection from SOI to ServiceNow.
I hope this helps in your decision which way to go.
MichaelBoehm