Serverless Discovery

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated June 16, 2026
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Serverless Discovery

    Serverless Discovery enables you to find application Configuration Items (CIs) on host machines without performing a traditional host discovery first. It leverages infrastructure patterns to explore CIs directly, bypassing the scanning and classification phases typical of standard Discovery processes. This approach is valuable for discovering applications based on infrastructure patterns rather than host-level details.

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    Key Features

    • Two Types of Serverless Discovery:
      • Standard Serverless Discovery: Discovers remote application CIs on unknown hosts using protocols like REST or HTTP without requiring the host's IP address. You define input parameters in the infrastructure pattern to connect to remote resources, suitable for discovering web-based applications.
      • Host-based Serverless Discovery: Discovers CIs residing on an already discovered host, which acts as a proxy. This is ideal when the target CIs lack IP addresses or their IP addresses are unknown. It uses the host’s credentials to perform discovery operations, such as WMI queries, without needing additional credentials or input parameters.
    • Infrastructure Patterns: Both serverless Discovery types rely on infrastructure patterns that specify connection methods and operations to explore CIs.
    • Discovery Scheduling: Serverless Discovery uses Discovery schedules instead of classifiers to trigger infrastructure patterns. A dedicated serverless schedule type is used, where you specify input parameters for standard serverless Discovery or a host CI for host-based Discovery.

    Key Outcomes

    • Enable discovery of application CIs independent of host discovery, reducing the time and complexity involved in identifying applications on networked hosts.
    • Discover web-based and other remote applications without needing IP addresses or host-level scanning.
    • Leverage existing host CIs as proxies to discover additional CIs efficiently and securely using host credentials.
    • Benefit from flexible scheduling that directly triggers serverless Discovery patterns, avoiding reliance on classifiers and streamlining discovery workflows.

    Discovery can find applications on host machines without the need to discover the host first. This type of Discovery is referred to as serverless Discovery.

    Serverless Discovery relies on infrastructure patterns to explore CIs on a host. This kind of Discovery skips the scanning and classification phases of Discovery. There are two types of serverless Discovery: standard and host-based. Both types require an infrastructure pattern.

    Standard serverless Discovery

    Standard serverless Discovery finds remote application CIs that reside on an unknown host. This type of serverless Discovery uses protocols, such as REST or HTTP, to find the CIs. The IP address of the host machine is not required. You define input parameters in an infrastructure pattern to connect to a remote resource. Use this type of Discovery when you want to discover web-based applications.

    Host-based serverless Discovery

    Host-based serverless Discovery finds CIs that reside on a host machine that you already discovered. The host acts as a proxy through which you find other CIs. You do not actually run Discovery on the host. Use this type of Discovery when:
    • You do not know the IP address of the CIs you want to discover, or the CIs do not actually have IP addresses.
    • The CIs reside on an already discovered host CI.

    For this type of Discovery, you also need an infrastructure pattern, but you do not need to define input parameters like you do for standard serverless Discovery. The pattern can specify operations, such as a WMI Query, which executes queries on a host. After Discovery connects to the host, it uses the credentials of the host to perform the Discovery of CIs you are exploring in the pattern. You do not need to specify additional credentials. When you run debug mode on the pattern, you can see the details under Temporary Variables on the pattern. You can then create pattern operations that make API calls from the host to the CIs you are trying to discover.

    Serverless Discovery schedules

    The infrastructure patterns that serverless Discovery uses are triggered from a Discovery schedule, rather than from a classifier. Serverless Discovery ignores classifiers. Use a serverless schedule type for both types of serverless Discovery. The serverless schedule allows you to specify: