Mid Server Discovery

[rke585858]

My question is simple.  We have a product that does the discovery of most of our assets, it will tell us what software  the Computer, laptop, VM or any other endpoint has installed on it, It will give Ip addresses and the usual stuff.

We have mid-servers that discover the servers, but the question is : can these mid-servers detect what software /applications are running on the servers?

[Harish Bainsla]

Mid-servers in ServiceNow, which are often used for facilitating communication and data transfer between external systems and the ServiceNow instance, typically do not have built-in capabilities for software/application discovery on servers. Their primary function is to help with data integration, automation, and orchestration.

To discover software/applications running on servers, you'd need a separate discovery tool or agent that is specifically designed for software inventory and application detection. Some common tools and methods for this purpose include:

1. ServiceNow Discovery: ServiceNow Discovery is a module within the ServiceNow platform that can be used to discover and map infrastructure, but it primarily focuses on network and infrastructure elements (e.g., servers, switches, routers) rather than software running on servers.

2. Software Asset Management (SAM) in ServiceNow: SAM is another module in ServiceNow that helps you manage software licenses and assets. While it doesn't perform software discovery, it can be used to track software and licenses once they are known.

3. Third-party Discovery Tools: There are specialized third-party tools like Microsoft SCCM (System Center Configuration Manager), BMC Atrium Discovery and Dependency Mapping, and various asset management tools that can perform software and application discovery on servers.

4. Agent-Based Software Inventory Tools: Some software inventory solutions require installing lightweight agents on servers. These agents continuously monitor software installations and send the data back to a central repository for analysis. Examples include products from vendors like Flexera, Snow Software, or ManageEngine.

[CMDB Whisperer]

Out of the box, ServiceNow Discovery does support the collection of information about both the Software Installations and the current Running Processes, through remote execution of commands on the target device, and yes, those commands originate from the MID servers, and the ability to collect this information is dependent on the credentials and permissions to run the remote commands -- on servers.

That said, there is not typically a reason to do query the Running Processes for end-user computers (laptops, desktops); for those computers you really need to know what software installed, not what is currently running.  And ServiceNow Discovery is not your best solution for discovering end-user computers (although, technically, it is capable of doing so and will do so if your desktop computer is in the defined IP ranges).  For end-user computers you will typically want to get this information from a deployed agent such as SCCM/MECM or Tanium, which is installed on those endpoints and collects the endpoint configuration data to be stored in a central server.  From that point, you will use the appropriate Service Graph Connector or other integration which will connect to the repository where the endpoint configuration data is stored, and import it to populate your CMDB data.  The connection to that repository is typically done via the MID Server, although in this case the MID Server is not doing any "discovery" per se, rather its role is just to do the data collection from the repository database.  Whether the software installation data is brought in as part data import will depend on whether it was collected by the agent and whether the integration includes that data in the import.  Both SCCM and Tanium will collect software installation data for Windows computers.  There are similar Service Graph Connector integrations such as JAMF which will get the information from Mac computers.