ServiceNow Discovery of Hyper-V Servers

[Shantanu1]

Hi Experts!

We are currently migrating our VMs from VMware to Hyper-V and are testing the discovery of Hyper-V servers, associated VMs, and clusters.

Our Hyper-V servers are hosted through System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) on Windows Server 2022. While the Hyper-V servers can be discovered individually, they are not being discovered via SCVMM when we attempt to discover the Windows hosts.

The expectation is that discovering the Windows host should trigger a Hyper-V pattern to discover the clusters, along with the hosted Hyper-V servers and the VMs running on them. so that we dont need to discover each Hyper V servers individually.

Please suggest if there is an out-of-the-box (OOB) solution for this.

[AJ-TechTrek]

Hi @Shantanu1 ,

As per my understanding why It’s Happening
* OOB Hyper-V patterns in ServiceNow are designed to run when a Hyper-V host is directly discovered (via WMI/WinRM).
* SCVMM discovery is not the same as vCenter discovery for VMware — there’s no single SCVMM probe/pattern in the OOB content that automatically:
* Connects to SCVMM
* Enumerates all Hyper-V hosts & clusters
* Discovers VMs from that central connection
* In other words: when you scan the SCVMM Windows host, Discovery sees it as a Windows Server, but without an SCVMM-specific probe/pattern, it doesn’t pivot into finding its managed Hyper-V nodes automatically.

OOB Capabilities in ServiceNow

* Supported:
* Hyper-V host discovery using WMI/WinRM (direct connection to each host).
* Cluster discovery if the cluster role is enabled and the host can enumerate other cluster nodes.
* Not Supported OOB:
* Centralized SCVMM API-based inventory pull like we do with vCenter → ESXi mapping.
* Automated “fan-out” from SCVMM to all managed Hyper-V hosts without touching each host individually.

Workarounds / Solutions

Option 1 — Direct Host Discovery (OOB)
* Keep WinRM/WMI credentials for all Hyper-V hosts.
* Discover them individually or via an IP range schedule.
* If they’re in a cluster, Cluster Server pattern will bring in the relationship between hosts and cluster automatically.
* Pros: Fully OOB, supported.
* Cons: Requires network reachability to each Hyper-V host.

Option 2 — SCVMM API Integration (Custom)
* Build a custom probe/pattern that:
1. Queries SCVMM via PowerShell + SCVMM PowerShell module or WMI (VMM namespace).
2. Returns list of Hyper-V hosts, clusters, and VM details.
3. Inserts/updates CIs in CMDB.
* This approach is similar in spirit to VMware vCenter discovery but needs custom scripting.
* Pros: Centralized, one connection point.
* Cons: Requires custom development and testing.

Option 3 — Hybrid
* Discover SCVMM server as a regular Windows server.
* Create a script include or IntegrationHub spoke to pull SCVMM inventory periodically.
* Trigger targeted discovery on returned host IPs — so Discovery runs the OOB Hyper-V patterns automatically.
* Pros: Minimal pattern editing, uses OOB Hyper-V logic for actual CI relationships.
* Cons: Still partly custom.

Recommendation
If you want pure OOB and supported by ServiceNow, you’ll need to:
* Discover each Hyper-V host individually (or via IP ranges) using the Windows pattern + Hyper-V pattern.
* Ensure WinRM ports (TCP 5985/5986) are open.
* Cluster information will populate if the cluster role is enabled.
If you need the “vCenter-style” SCVMM discovery, you’ll need a custom SCVMM API/pattern integration, because ServiceNow doesn’t currently provide that OOB.

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