Discovery Probes to Patterns

[Ronald Lucas]

Hi everyone.

We have an upgraded instance which is now running Kingston.  And there are lots of Windows and Linux server CIs already in the CMDB discovered using probes.  Now we want to begin moving from probes to patterns as patterns are the future.

As I read through "Windows discovery" in Kingston documentation, I see this:

Caution: Manually switching from probes/sensors to patterns is not recommended for the operating system patterns, such as Windows and Linux.

And I don't see reasons this is not recommended or suggestions on how to migrate from probes to patterns.  

Comments?

Thanks,

Ron

[chuckm]

KB article #KB0694477 (Switching from Probe-based Discovery to Pattern-based Discovery) provides a very good summary for one of the issues and a method to move from Probe-based discovery to Pattern-based discovery:

https://hi.service-now.com/kb_view.do?sysparm_article=KB0694477

One of the key issues is that that Probe-based discovery and Pattern-based discovery use different methods for updating the CMDB.  Probe-based discovery uses references to associate the Main CI (Windows Server, Linux Server, etc.) to Related List data (Network Adapter, File System, Disk Partition, Disk, etc.) whereas Pattern-based discovery uses relationships to associate the Main CI to the Related List data.

When switching from Probe-based discovery to Pattern-based discovery duplicates may be created (in the Related List data CIs:  Network Adapter, File System, Disk Partition, Disk, etc.).

[robertgeen]

Unfortunately I think at some point if people who have been on probes for ages want to get new content and make the move to Service Mapping they are probably going to have to bite the bullet and go through the process of having duplicates create and merge them afterwards. I would love for all of us to make a big enough stink about this that ServiceNow creates a fix script for it.

[chuckm]

ServiceNow has created the scripts to create the new relationships migrating from Probe-based discovery to Pattern-based discovery.  Refer to KB article #KB0694477 (Switching from Probe-based Discovery to Pattern-based Discovery):

https://hi.service-now.com/kb_view.do?sysparm_article=KB0694477

[chuckm]

Switching from Probe-based Discovery to Pattern-based Discovery (KB0694477) https://hi.service-now.com/kb_view.do?sysparm_article=KB0694477 has been updated with an attachment.  It outlines the the 10 critical difference between Probes and Patterns.

The attachment is at the end of the article and named Pattern vs Probe - Positioning document - 1.pdf.  The key topics are as follows:

• Positioning document for Probes vs Pattern
• IRE performance issues with large payloads
• Discovery for SAM Use Cases
• SAM Publisher Pack Recommendation
• Pattern – not creating installed software