If you miss any content, please leave it as a comment and I will add it to this article.
| Table of Contents |
My library Knowledge Sources To Go is very popular, but it was intended mainly as a thematically grouped guide to standard sources and was provided by me as a PDF file. For certain topics, however, there is so much content that I can no longer include it in that document, as it cannot continue to grow forever.
For this reason, I have decided to handle such topics in individual community articles like this one instead.
What is Discovery?
Discovery examines your entire IT infrastructure, creating an accurate and up-to-date record in your CMDB. With the help of MID servers it discovers both physical and logical components, including virtual machines, servers, storage, databases, applications, and more. It can even discover your custom applications using application fingerprinting - supervised machine learning algorithms that automatically identify new types of applications as they are deployed in your network. It also provides Application Dependency Mapping (ADM), identifying upstream and downstream dependencies to the TCP port and process level.
ℹ️ Please note:
- This article is focussing only on the agent-less discovery. For agent-based discovery, please refer to my article Agent Client Collector for Visibility
- For some foundational topics I created individual articles:
Entry point to the official product information pages
Entry point to the official product documentation
Summarized overview in one PDF file.
This guide provides a detailed explanation of how the Discovery process is enabled within the ServiceNow platform.
Describes the inherent functionality of the product and outlines the technical components in the form of a diagram.
Presentation from a People, Process, Data/Analytics and Technology perspective, the typical challenges and risks that may be faced during an implementation along with recommended solutions and mitigation options.
Populate and maintain your CMDB with Discovery
This Success Playbook will show you how to set up ServiceNow Discovery in a way that keeps your CMDB current and reliable.
ITOM Visibility security overview
Trainings & Courses
This training lays the groundwork for mature infrastructure operations management. Using probes, sensors, and discovery patterns, this ITOM application captures IP-enabled configuration items (CIs), and maps their relationships and dependencies, in your ServiceNow CMDB.
The ServiceNow Discovery Application is always expanding as it continues to add new functionality to the product that cannot be covered in the ServiceNow Discovery Fundamentals 3-day course.
Discovery Basics for Software Asset Management (SAM)
This course explores using the integration between Discovery and Software Asset Management (SAM) Professional to automatically find and populate software installation information within your data center for later normalization and reconciliation in Software Asset Management (SAM) Professional.
Articles & Blog Posts
2018-02-12 by @Patrick DeCarl1
Using Pre/Post Processing Scripts to handle reference fields via Discovery Pattern
For those who have made the jump to creating new discovery patterns to replace your probes/sensors or new patterns in general, you will find its hard to set a reference field value via the pattern for fields that are not CI base. Ex: location, company, Assigned to and etc. However, there is a feature that is not on the doc site nor developer site call Pre/Post Processing Scripts
2019-11-06 by ServiceNow Support
This article aims at providing an insight into how SNMP Discovery works.
2020-11-18 by @SiD2
Which CI Relationships are created in Patterns
This article is to identify which all CI relationships a particular pattern creates. Though this is available in the docs, but sometimes we might not get for every pattern or would not be able to find one easily.
2020-11-18 by @SiD2
Which Commands are Used in a Pattern
This article is to identify which commands a particular pattern runs in discovery.
2020-12-03 by @richardbrounste
Extending Discovery to Discover Databases and Database Tables
In this article, I will describe the steps you must go through to discover the full architecture of a database down to the name of the table and store this data in the CMDB. This will involve creating a custom class and extending a Discovery Pattern.
2020-12-14 by ServiceNow Support
Discovery Troubleshooting Guide - Protocol Level
2021-03-17 by @Charles Keown
ServiceNow Discovery – Common Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them
The following articles highlight some of the discovery pitfalls that may negatively affect the accuracy of the ServiceNow CMDB. Avoiding these challenges can help create a more reliable representation of your ServiceNow environment.
2021-06-06 by @VaranAwesomenow
List of ports used by Discovery
2021-07-05 by @naveen_kumarhr
In this lab you will learn two general methods of extending discovery using patterns. Requirement is to add the start date field to the Windows Server record that is not captured out of box.
2021-07-05 by @naveen_kumarhr
Add and populate related CIs and connect them together
This lab explains how to create related CIs using the pattern and connect them together according the Identification Engine rules.
2021-09-11 by @SiD2
How to Debug Pre Post Scripts - Patterns
This article covers how Pattern Pre Post Scripts [Pre Execution, Pre and Post Sensor] can be debugged using OOB Script Debugger Utility.
2022-07-18 by @SiD2
Which Commands and Operations run in a Pattern
This blog is to identify and list Terminal Commands [Linux & WIn], WMI Queries, Regsitry Query, SNMP Query and finally cloud API's a particular pattern executes during discovery which gives you a good visibility per infrastructure that helps administrator teams to meet and fulfill necessary configuration/access related tasks.
2022-07-15 by ServiceNow Support
There is no tool available, which allows users to run commands on range of IP Address(es). In the absence of such tool, the validation of commands on IP address(es) against the credentials present in the instance do not happen. In case of discovery failure, where certain commands did not execute as expected, the majority of the times users are asked to perform such validations by running the command from the virtual machine where MID server is installed.
2022-10-04 by @doug_schulze
Discovery Best (better) Practices
All new for 2023, attached is a zip file of some of the better practices I've come across in the 14+ years of doing discovery deployments and support... Your mileage may vary, there are many things to consider in a Discovery Deployment.
2023-02-28 by @Tal Ben Ari
Troubleshoot patterns with the Command Validation Tool
2022-18-08 by @Dondi Beers
How to extend discovery content of an SNMP device
2023-01-11 by ServiceNow Support
Storage Discovery Quick Start Guide
2023-03-21 by @JFro and @Camila Godoy
How to automate CMDB Discovery Schedules through integrating with DNS/IPAM tools
In this post, we will describe how we designed and developed an integration to automate our ServiceNow discovery using an IP Management tool.
2024-02-08 by Paul Stuart
Identification & Reconciliation Discovery in ServiceNow
The Identification and Reconciliation Engine (IRE) in ServiceNow Discovery acts as a framework for managing how CIs are defined, interpreted, and updated in an organization's CMDB, similar to how a referee's rulebook governs a football game. The IRE utilizes key components such as identifiers, inclusion rules, reconciliation rules, data refresh rules, and dependencies to ensure consistent and reliable CMDB management, providing a structured approach to updating data and maintaining the integrity of the configuration management system.
2024-11-26 by Runjay Patel
ServiceNow Discovery Step-by-Step configuration
I hope this article will help to many folks who are struggling to setup discovery right from scratch. Here i will explain step by step guide setup to configure discovery.
Videos & Podcasts
2020-10-01 by ServiceNow with Runjay
Full Discovery In 4 Hours with Real World demonstration
This video help you to understand complete discovery implementation from scratch to end. I have explained each and every points in details.
2021-01-12 by GlideFast Consulting
Extending Discovery/Service Mapping Patterns
In this ServiceNow Tutorial, Chris Tessier of GlideFast Consulting gives an overview of extending Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns in ServiceNow.
2021-03-31 by ServiceNow Community
Discover vCenter in less than one minute with
erviceNow can discover and map your Vmware vCenter environment with one set of credentials and one IP address. Define and map hundreds of configuration items and relationships in less than a minute.
2021-10-29 by ServiceNow Community
2022-03-02 by Einar & Partners
gMSA for ServiceNow Discovery - a comprehensive summary
Group Managed Service Accounts (gMSA) for ServiceNow Discovery will be officially supported with the San Diego release. In this video, Michel explains why you should consider gMSA for discovery implementations and how it's done.
2023-01-31 by ServiceNow Community
How to: Get Started with ITOM Discovery
2023-08-29 by Jeff Thies
Service Now Discovery Fundamentals and Live Demo
This ServiceNow Discovery training session teaches you the fundamentals of how discovery works in ServiceNow to populate the CMDB. You will learn about ServiceNow Discovery schedules, permissions, probes and patterns through a live ServiceNow Discovery demonstration. It includes everything you need to know to pass the ServiceNow CSA Certification exam, or just level-up your ServiceNow Discovery skills.
Troubleshooting
Discovery Troubleshooting Guide
Discovery error messages (KB0539839)
Troubleshooting Discovery of Microsoft Windows Servers (KB0563986)
Why Discovery may not return a Serial Number for a SNMP Device (KB0695986)
SNMP Discovery Troubleshooting (KB0720448)
How Location field is set for a CI | Why is the Location field empty on a CI? (KB0864114)
Known Error Portal
Pre-configured filter for the respective topic. Remove the query string or modify the filters on the left side if you want to narrow down the search results in a different way.
Selected Articles
Windows Server Discovery fails (KB0724226)
Pattern based discovery does not detect extra IP Addresses leading to concurrent discoveries and hig... (KB0759072)
