Cloud Service Mapping vs Discovery

[Mason Angus]

So I am questioning the practical differences between on prem and cloud discovery and how service mapping mixes up into this. Does cloud discovery provide additional information that regular discovery could not, for instance what applications run on given hosts? In a way a type of service mapping... And with service mapping for the cloud, is this a different module than regular service mapping, and if so, what are the differences between it and regular service mapping? Apologies for the broad questions but the documentation I found online was not very helpful IMO. Thanks in advance.  

[DaveHertel · Accepted solution]

Hi - Cloud Discovery gets the AWS/Azure/etc ecosystem -- VPCs, data centers, regions, images, etc.  But it does not discover the details of a running server (running processes, what IPs are talking to where, details running with the OS while VM is running, etc.).  For this piece, traditional IP-based discovery (same as on-prem) is used.  The 2 perspectives of IT (cloud metadata and vm details via IP disco) are then merged by the platform to provide a holistic view of infrastructure in the cloud.

Service Mapping (SM) is fundamentally the same, regardless of on-prem or cloud -- SM needs to know the infrastructure (which was collected by Disco and placed inside the CMDB), regardless of where the infrastructure resides.   There is no such thing as service mapping targeted just for the cloud or on prem -- SM is simply a product that facilitates the build-out of services, into a service-aware CMDB.  

Hope this helps?

[Maheshwar VS]

@Dave Hertel So should we install dedicated mid Servers on Azure/AWS to discover & map CI's Azure/AWS Infra? Please advice.

[DaveHertel]

Hi, it is common to install MIDs within the cloud ecosystem. But if your on-prem mids have TCP access and authorization, they too can scan the cloud infrastructure. Either way works, it's up to your architects and security team to decide which approach with for their business.

Hope this helps?

[Runjay Patel]

Check out this video, it will clear all your doubts and help you to understand Cloud Discovery queries in details.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWAvGbnCmlQ&ab_channel=ServiceNowHelpdesk

It help you to understand below points.

• Cloud Discovery
• Cloud Service Mapping vs Discovery
• Steps by step setup
• Practice with real world scenario
• Troubleshooting
• CI Class Tables and Attributes
• Amazon AWS Cloud Discovery Step by Step Configuration
• Azure Cloud Discovery Step by Step Configuration

Please mark reply as Helpful/Correct, if applicable. Thanks!!