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ServiceNow SNMP discovery pushback

Ravish Shetty
Tera Guru

yesterday

Hello all,

 

We were starting to implement discovery and the network team had apprehensions. They do not want to open SNMP into devices as that could be a security threat.

 

  • One important item which they wanted to know if ServiceNow can work with API instead of SNMP for Aruba, Arista, Velocloud, Meraki devices
  • When are API's used versus SNMP

Documents which they requested:

  • Architectural overviews for SNMP based network discovery
  • Technical articles on SNMP discovery
  • They want us to get details on what ServiceNow does with SNMP and what details it collects.
  • What data is collected by SNMP

My understanding is that SNMP is the default for network device discovery by ServiceNow and where ServiceNow can, it uses SSH or API or other methods and so we are stuck with the limitation of the ServiceNow platform.

 

Thanks,

Ravish 

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ayushraj7012933
Mega Guru

yesterday

Hi @Ravish Shetty ,

Your understanding is partially correct, but ServiceNow Discovery is not limited to SNMP, and you’re not strictly blocked by that constraint.

ServiceNow supports a multi-protocol discovery approach. While SNMP is commonly used for traditional network devices, API-based discovery is fully supported for modern platforms like Aruba, Arista, Velocloud, and Meraki.

 

When SNMP vs API is used:

  • SNMP → Traditional devices (for deep L2/L3 visibility like MAC, ARP, routing, topology)
  • API → Cloud-managed / SD-WAN / controller-based devices

Steps:-

API-Based Discovery

  1. Verify if the vendor supports APIs (Meraki, Aruba, Arista, Velocloud)
  2. In ServiceNow:
    • Navigate to Credentials → New → REST Credential
    • Provide API key / token
  3. Install required plugins/integrations (if applicable):
    • Meraki Integration
    • VMware SD-WAN (Velocloud) Integration
  4. Configure Discovery or IntegrationHub ETL:
    • Create a REST call to vendor API endpoints
    • Map response data to CMDB tables (cmdb_ci_network_device, interfaces, etc.)
  5. Schedule data collection using:
    • Scheduled Jobs / Flow Designer / IntegrationHub
  6. Validate discovered CIs in CMDB 
    plz let me know if this approch work properly. 
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