Storage discovery examples

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated March 12, 2026
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Storage discovery examples

    Storage discovery in ServiceNow Zurich release automatically identifies and creates configuration items (CIs) and their relationships for physical and logical storage components. This includes storage directly attached to servers and storage connected via fibre channel switched fabric in multipath configurations. The discovery process enables accurate mapping and management of storage infrastructure within your CMDB.

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    Direct Attached Storage (DAS) Example

    For a Linux host with directly attached SCSI storage (e.g., /dev/sda), discovery detects:

    • The physical SCSI device and its partitions (/dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2).
    • Mount points and file systems, such as /boot on /dev/sda1 with Ext4 format.
    • Logical volumes configured via Logical Volume Management (LVM), including storage pools and their usage.

    Discovery creates CIs representing physical disks, partitions, storage volumes, file systems, logical volumes, and storage pools. It also establishes relationships between these CIs, such as which partitions belong to which physical devices, and which volumes are mounted where.

    Multipath Fibre Channel Storage Example

    In a Storage Area Network (SAN) environment with multipath fibre channel storage, discovery identifies:

    • Multiple physical storage devices (e.g., mpatha and mpathb) connected through fibre switches.
    • Partitions on these devices and logical volumes mapped across them.
    • Mount points and file systems on the Linux host, such as Ext4 mounts on logical volumes.

    Discovery also creates detailed CIs and relationships for these components, enabling failover and redundancy configurations to be accurately represented in the CMDB.

    Switched Fibre Fabric Details

    Discovery extends to sub-components in NAS and SAN environments, including host bus adapters (HBAs), fibre channel disks, storage pools, and physical block storage components. It models the switched fibre fabric connections, capturing redundant paths for failover within the SAN infrastructure.

    This comprehensive discovery of storage fabric connections ensures visibility into the entire storage topology and its failover capabilities.

    Discovery creates configuration items (CI) and CI relationships for physical and logical storage components attached directly to application and database servers or by fibre channel switched fabric in a multi-path configuration.

    Direct attached storage

    In this example of direct attached storage (DAS), a SCSI drive with two partitions, /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2, is attached to a Linux host. The /dev/sda1 partition is bootable and supports the system software. The /dev/sda2 partition contains a logical volume configured as a storage pool and mounted to the Linux root file system by Logical Volume Management (LVM). The storage pool uses only 1.5GB of the partition, leaving 13GB of storage available for additional logical volumes.
    Figure 1. Direct attached storage example
    Direct attached storage DAS example
    Table 1. CIs and relationships created for direct attached storage (DAS)
    Configuration item Description Tables Key reference and Relationships
    /dev/sda SCSI physical storage device
    • [cmdb_ci_disk]
    • [cmdb_ci_storage_device]
    • [cmdb_rel_ci]
    		 [cmdb_rel_ci]
    • Provides: /dev/sda
    • Provided by:/dev/sda1
    [cmdb_rel_ci]
    • Provides: /dev/sda
    • Provided by:/dev/mapper/lvm-root-333-0
    /dev/sda1 Partition 1 on the SCSI storage device
    • [cmdb_ci_partition]
    • [cmdb_ci_storage_volume]
    • [cmdb_ci_file_system]
    • [cmdb_rel_ci]
    		 [cmdb_ci_file_system]
    • Mount point: /boot
    • File system: Ext4
    [cmdb_rel_ci]
    • Provides: /dev/sda
    • Provided by:/dev/sda1
    /dev/sda2 Partition 2 on the SCSI storage device
    • [cmdb_ci_partition]
    • [cmdb_ci_storage_pool_member]
    		 [cmdb_ci_storage_pool_member]
    • Pool: /dev/mapper/lvm-root-333-0
    • Storage: /dev/sda2
    /dev/mapper/lvm-root-333-0 Linux logical volume, mapped with LVM to a physical disk storage partition.
    • [cmdb_ci_storage_device]
    • [cmdb_ci_storage_volume]
    • [cmdb_ci_file_system]
    • [cmdb_ci_storage_pool]
    • [cmdb_ci_storage_pool_member]
    • [cmdb_ci_lvm_pool]
    • [cmdb_ci_lvm_pool_member][cmdb_rel_ci]
    		 [cmdb_ci_file_system]
    • Mount point: /
    • File system: Ext4
    [cmdb_rel_ci]
    • Provides: /dev/sda
    • Provided by:/dev/mapper/lvm-root-333-0
    [cmdb_ci_storage_pool_member]
    • Pool: /dev/mapper/lvm-root-333-0
    • Storage: /dev/sda2

    Multipath fibre channel storage

    In this example of a fibre channel storage area network (SAN), two physical storage devices, mpatha and mpathb, are attached to a Linux host through fibre switches, which provide failover capabilities. The mpatha drive contains two partitions, mpatha1 and mpatha2. The first partition is mounted directly to /boot on the Linux host. Three logical volumes are mapped to the mpatha2 partition and to the physical device mpathb. The logical volumes are mounted as Ext4 file systems in folders on the Linux root structure. This example shows the CIs that Discovery manages for each component and the mounting points for the logical volumes on the Linux host.

    Figure 2. Multipath fibre channel storage example
    Multipath fibre channel storage example

    Switched fibre fabric details

    Discovery creates CIs for the logical sub-components in NAS and SAN environments, such as fibre channel disks and pool components, as well as for host bus adapters (HBA) and physical block storage. In multipath environments, Discovery creates CI relationships within the switched fibre fabrics that connects the Linux host to the physical storage devices. In this diagram, the fibre fabrics have redundant paths that the SAN environment can use for failover if connections fail.

    Figure 3. Fibre fabric redundant paths
    Fibre fabric redundant paths