Storage discovery examples

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  • Updated March 12, 2026
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    Summary of Storage discovery examples

    ServiceNow Discovery automatically identifies and creates configuration items (CIs) and their relationships for both physical and logical storage components connected to application and database servers. This includes direct attached storage (DAS) and multipath fibre channel storage area network (SAN) configurations.

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    Direct Attached Storage (DAS)

    In DAS scenarios, Discovery detects storage devices such as SCSI drives on Linux hosts, including partitions and logical volumes managed via Logical Volume Management (LVM). For example, a SCSI drive with partitions /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2 is discovered, where:

    • /dev/sda1 is a bootable partition mounted at /boot with an Ext4 file system.
    • /dev/sda2 contains a logical volume configured as a storage pool mounted to the Linux root file system, with available space for additional volumes.

    Discovery creates CIs for physical disks, partitions, logical volumes, storage pools, and file systems, as well as their relationships, enabling a comprehensive mapping of storage components on the host.

    Multipath Fibre Channel Storage

    For SAN environments connected through fibre channel switched fabrics, Discovery identifies multiple physical storage devices attached via fibre switches, which provide failover capabilities. For instance:

    • Two physical devices (mpatha and mpathb) connect to the Linux host through redundant fibre channel paths.
    • Partitions on these devices and associated logical volumes are mapped and mounted to various points in the Linux file system, typically using Ext4 file systems.

    Discovery also captures detailed CIs for NAS and SAN sub-components such as fibre channel disks, storage pools, host bus adapters (HBAs), and physical block storage. It establishes relationships within the switched fibre fabric to reflect multipath redundancy and failover paths.

    Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    • Automatically maps physical and logical storage components, giving a clear, accurate view of storage infrastructure.
    • Supports complex storage topologies, including multipath SAN environments with failover capabilities.
    • Enables tracking and management of storage devices, partitions, logical volumes, and their mounting points within the CMDB.
    • Improves configuration accuracy and supports impact analysis by detailing relationships between storage components and hosts.

    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.
    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.

    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.