Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) virtual private cloud (VPC) Peering Connection pattern-based discovery

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated June 16, 2026
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) Peering Connection Pattern-Based Discovery

    The Amazon EC2 VPC Peering Connection pattern-based discovery in ServiceNow enables automated detection and mapping of AWS VPC Peering Connections within your cloud environment. This functionality is part of the Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns application, which identifies AWS cloud components and populates their details into the ServiceNow Configuration Management Database (CMDB) and associated tables.

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    This feature helps ServiceNow customers maintain an accurate, up-to-date inventory of VPC peering connections, supporting better cloud infrastructure visibility and management.

    Key Features

    • Pattern Activation: The VPC Peering Connection discovery pattern is disabled by default. Customers must enable it to begin discovery. With Visibility Content version 6.28.0 and later, enabling or disabling patterns is no longer treated as a customization, ensuring continued updates and reset to the latest predefined version upon upgrade.
    • AWS Discovery Prerequisites: Proper AWS discovery prerequisites must be met, including verification that resources are not duplicated in the Resource Inclusion List to avoid redundant discovery.
    • GovCloud Support: For AWS GovCloud (US) accounts, discovery requires configuration of a data center URL within the AWS service account setup.
    • Data Population: The discovery pattern populates detailed VPC peering connection data into both CMDB and non-CMDB tables, ensuring comprehensive asset tracking.
    • CI Relationships: The pattern establishes critical relationships between VPC Peering Connection CIs, Cloud Gateway CIs, and AWS Datacenter CIs, supporting accurate service mapping and dependency visualization.
    • AWS Tag Discovery: Tags associated with VPC Peering Connections are collected and stored in the Key Value table for enhanced metadata and reporting capabilities.

    Data Tables and Fields

    Key tables populated during discovery include:

    • cmdbawselasticcomputecloudvpcpeeringconnection: Stores unique identifiers (ARN), names, statuses, and references to Cloud Gateway CIs.
    • cmdbcicloudgateway: Contains install and operational status, descriptions specifying the resource type as AWS::EC2::VPCPeeringConnection, and the ARN as a unique identifier.
    • cmdbkeyvalue: Holds AWS tag key-value pairs collected from VPC peering connections.

    Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    • Automates discovery and inventory management of AWS VPC Peering Connections, reducing manual effort and errors.
    • Improves cloud infrastructure visibility by maintaining up-to-date CMDB records and relationships.
    • Supports compliance and governance by integrating AWS resource details and tags into ServiceNow.
    • Enables enhanced service mapping and impact analysis through established CI relationships.

    Next Steps

    • Verify AWS discovery prerequisites and remove any relevant resources from the Resource Inclusion List to prevent duplication.
    • Enable the Amazon EC2 VPC Peering Connection discovery pattern in the Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns application.
    • Configure the discovery schedule, including adjustments for AWS GovCloud if applicable.
    • Review discovered data in CMDB and non-CMDB tables to validate and utilize VPC Peering Connection information.

    Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns finds AWS services on your cloud environment. Discovering some of these resources may require updating to the latest version of the Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns application from the ServiceNow Store.

    Pattern-based discovery and mapping requirements

    Verify the AWS discovery prerequisites
    For more information, see the prerequisites section in Amazon AWS Cloud components discovery using patterns.
    Remove resources from the Resource Inclusion List table
    Verify that the relevant resource isn't listed in the Resource Inclusion List [sa_cloud_inventory_resource_whitelist] table to avoid duplicate discovery. For more information on removing resources from the Resource Inclusion List, see Amazon Web Services (AWS) Resource Inventory.
    Enable the relevant pattern
    The pattern for this service is disabled by default. Starting with Visibility Content version 6.28.0, activating or deactivating a pattern won't be considered a customization, and it will continue to receive updates. Patterns that were previously activated or deactivated will reset to the latest predefined version after upgrading while retaining the last active field value. For more information on enabling patterns, see Activate a disabled pattern.
    Configure the Discovery schedule to support GovCloud
    Discovering AWS GovCloud (US) accounts requires using a datacenter URL when setting up an AWS service account. For more information, see Create AWS service accounts.

    Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns application populates data in both CMDB and non-CMDB tables.

    Data stored in non-CMDB tables

    Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns application populates data in the non-CMDB table when running the Amazon AWS - Elastic Compute Cloud VPC Peering Connection - Extended Inventory (LP) pattern.

    You can review the non-CMDB AWS tables by navigating to All > Configuration > AWS. You can also search the navigation filter for the specific pattern name.

    Table 1. AWS Elastic Compute Cloud - VPC Peering Connection [cmdb_aws_elastic_compute_cloud_vpc_peering_connection]
    Field Description
    Object Id [object_id] The Amazon Resource Name (ARN) uniquely identifying the VPC Peering Connection.

    The ARN consists of the region, account ID, and VPC ID in the following format: arn:aws:ec2:<region>:<accountId>:vpc-peering-connection/<vpc_id>.
    Name [name] The unique identifier of the VPC involved in the peering connection.
    Status [status] The current status of the VPC peering connection.
    Configuration Item [configuration_item] References the Cloud Gateway [cmdb_ci_cloud_gateway] table.

    Data stored in CMDB tables

    Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns application populates data in the CMDB when running the Amazon AWS - Elastic Compute Cloud VPC Peering Connection - Extended Inventory (LP) pattern.

    Table 2. Cloud Gateway [cmdb_ci_cloud_gateway]
    Field Description
    Object ID [object_id] The ARN uniquely identifying the VPC Peering Connection.

    The ARN consists of the region, account ID, and VPC ID in the following format: arn:aws:ec2:<region>:<accountId>:vpc-peering-connection/<vpc_id>.
    Name [name] The unique identifier of the VPC involved in the peering connection.
    Install Status [install_status] Install status of the resource. Default value is Installed.
    Operational status [operational_status] Operational status of the resource. Default value is Operational.
    Description [short_description] Type of resource. The value is set to AWS::EC2::VPCPeeringConnection.

    CI relationships

    The Amazon AWS - Elastic Compute Cloud VPC Peering Connection - Extended Inventory (LP) pattern creates these relationships to support Amazon EC2 VPC Peering Connection discovery.

    CI Relationship CI
    Cloud Gateway [cmdb_ci_cloud_gateway] Hosted on::Hosts AWS Datacenter [cmdb_ci_aws_datacenter]
    AWS Elastic Compute Cloud - VPC Peering Connection [cmdb_aws_elastic_compute_cloud_vpc_peering_connection] References Cloud Gateway [cmdb_ci_cloud_gateway]

    AWS tag discovery

    The pattern collects tags and populates them in the Key Value [cmdb_key_value] table.
    Table 3. Key Value [cmdb_key_value]
    Field Description
    Key [key] Tag name.
    Value [value] Tag value.