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Summary of Nutanix Acropolis discovery
The ServiceNow Discovery application leverages the Nutanix Components pattern to identify and populate configuration items (CIs) in the CMDB related to Nutanix Acropolis environments.It supports discovery of Nutanix Prism Central (version 2024.3.1.8 or later) and Prism Element (version 7.0.1.6 or later) using REST APIs.The pattern supports both legacy API versions v1–3 and the newer v4 API, starting with Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns version 1.29.0, enabling more comprehensive and updated discovery.
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Key Features
API Support: Discovery uses REST APIs for data collection, supporting both older (v1–3) and new (v4) API versions. Switching to v4 creates new pool and container records without updating existing ones.
Event Discovery: Nutanix VM and Host Event patterns detect state changes every five minutes, triggering rediscovery to keep CMDB data current. v4 API support was added in version 1.31.0.
CMDB Data Population: Discovers and populates detailed CI classes including Nutanix Controller VMs, Clusters, Hosts, Storage Pools, Storage Containers, Virtual Machine Instances, and Prism Central. It captures essential attributes like IDs, memory, CPU details, state, and descriptions.
CI Relationships: Establishes relationships between Nutanix components, clusters, hosts, VMs, storage pools, containers, and Prism Central to model the infrastructure accurately. Relationships vary depending on whether the environment uses AHV or VMware hypervisors and whether VMware discovery is run.
Tag Discovery: Tags on Nutanix hosts and VMs are collected and stored in the Key Value [cmdbkeyvalue] table for enhanced categorization and filtering.
Dashboards and Insights: Provides dashboards to visualize discovery results, accessible via Self-Service > Dashboards or the Discovery Admin Workspace Insights after upgrading to version 1.3.1.
Prerequisites and Configuration
Application Versions: Ensure Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns, Visibility Content, and CMDB CI Class Models are current.
MID Server: Deploy a dedicated MID Server with network access to Nutanix Prism Central and Prism Element. Install Nutanix endpoint SSL certificates into the MID Server Java Runtime Environment.
API Permissions: Configure read-only access for required API endpoints for both v1–3 and v4 versions.
Prism Central Version: Confirm Prism Central is version 7.3 or higher to utilize the v4 API.
Enable v4 Discovery: Set the MID Server property to specify the exact v4 version to activate Nutanix v4 discovery.
Authentication and Scheduling: Configure basic authentication credentials for API access and create serverless discovery schedules for targeted Nutanix Acropolis discovery.
VMware Integration: Run VMware probe discovery prior to Nutanix discovery in VMware environments to properly link Nutanix components to ESX clusters.
Performance Optimization: Optionally disable CI tag discovery if tag volume impacts discovery performance. Adjust batch size for relation deletions to optimize processing.
Event Discovery Configuration
Confirm initial Nutanix discovery has populated Prism Central CIs.
Ensure MID Servers have appropriate capabilities for Nutanix event discovery.
Install Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns version 1.31.0 or later for v4 event support.
Optionally restrict v4 event discovery to specific Prism Central instances using MID Server properties.
Enable scheduled jobs for Nutanix VM and Host event discovery to automate rediscovery on state changes.
Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers
Automates comprehensive discovery and continuous monitoring of Nutanix Acropolis environments, ensuring accurate and up-to-date CMDB data.
Supports both legacy and latest Nutanix API versions, facilitating smoother upgrades and integration.
Enables detailed visibility into Nutanix infrastructure components and their relationships, improving asset management and service mapping accuracy.
Event-driven rediscovery capabilities reduce manual intervention by automatically detecting changes.
Integration with VMware discovery enhances cross-platform infrastructure mapping.
Customizable discovery settings and performance tuning options allow adaptation to specific environment needs.
The ServiceNowDiscovery application uses the Nutanix Components pattern to find components of the Nutanix Acropolis solution containing Nutanix Prism Central version 2024.3.1.8 or Nutanix Prism Element 7.0.1.6. Discovering some of these resources may require updating to the latest version of the Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns application from the ServiceNow Store.
The Nutanix Components pattern uses REST APIs to collect information about the Acropolis deployment components.
Starting with version 1.29.0, Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns supports Nutanix v4 discovery. When you switch to v4, Discovery creates new pool and container records, while existing records stop being updated.
The Nutanix VM Event pattern finds events for virtual machines (VMs) in the Nutanix deployment and triggers rediscovery when a state change is detected. Starting with Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns version 1.31.0, the VM Event pattern also supports API v4, and the Nutanix Host Event pattern detects state changes for Nutanix hosts using API v4. Both patterns run every five minutes by default, but are inactive until you enable the relevant scheduled job.
Verify that the user has read-only access to the following GET APIs. Note that the API call referencing /PrismGateway/services/rest/v1/vms uses a legacy endpoint because it's not available yet in the
newer API.
The Nutanix Components pattern can discover Nutanix components hosted on ESX clusters, like storage pools, storage containers, and Controller Virtual Machine (CVM), but not ESX clusters themselves. Run VMware probe discovery before the Nutanix pattern discovery to link the Nutanix components to their ESX clusters. If you don't, the Nutanix components are linked to Nutanix Prism instead. For more information on VMware probe discovery, see Discovery for VMware virtualization.
(Optional) Disable CI tag discovery
The Nutanix Components pattern discovers tags for Nutanix hosts and virtual machines. If you have dozens of tags in your deployment, it might slow down the discovery causing performance issues. You can disable the CI tag discovery by performing the
following steps:
Navigate to Pattern Designer > Discovery Patterns.
Select the Nutanix Components pattern.
Under Extension Section, select the check box for Categories (Tags) and select Remove.
Select Save.
Adjust the batch size for removing redundant relationship data
The sn_itom_pattern.nutanix_relations_deletion_batch_size property sets the batch size for deleting relations between Nutanix Virtual Machine Instance and Nutanix Host. The default value is 1000; you can adjust this batch size as needed.
Configure Nutanix events
Verify that Nutanix Components discovery has run and that the Nutanix Prism Central [cmdb_ci_nutanix_prism_central] table is populated.
Verify that the MID Servers for Nutanix event discovery have All or Nutanix capability.
For v4 event discovery, verify that at least version 1.31.0 of Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns is installed.
Data collected by Discovery during horizontal discovery
Discovery populates the data in the CMDB when running the Nutanix Components pattern.
Note:
API v4 calls might retrieve or populate different values compared to v1-3. For more information, search the Nutanix documentation for the "API Reference v4 Introduction" article.
Table 2. Nutanix Controller VM [cmdb_ci_nutanix_controller_vm]
Field
Description
Name [name]
The name of the Nutanix Controller VM.
VM ID [vm_id]
The universally unique identifier (UUID) of the Nutanix Controller VM.
Object ID [object_id]
The ID of the Nutanix Controller VM.
Memory (MB) [memory]
The memory size of the Nutanix Controller VM in Megabytes (MB).
State [state]
The power state of the Nutanix Controller VM (on/off).
Hypervisor Type [hypervisor_type]
The type of the hypervisor used for the Nutanix Controller VM.
Description [short_description]
The description defined for the virtual machine in the Nutanix console: Prism Central or Prism Element.
The universally unique identifier (UUID) of the Nutanix Controller VM.
Object ID [object_id]
The ID of the Nutanix Controller VM.
CPUs [cpus]
The number of CPUs that the VM has.
Memory (MB) [memory]
The memory size of the Nutanix Controller VM in Megabytes (MB).
State [state]
The power state of the Nutanix Controller VM (on/off).
Description [short_description]
The description defined for the virtual machine in the Nutanix console: Prism Central or Prism Element.
Table 8. Nutanix Prism Central [cmdb_ci_nutanix_prism_central]
Field
Description
Name [name]
The name of the Nutanix Prism Central multi-cluster manager.
PrismCentral@<IP_ADDRESS>: When the IP address is associated with the Prism Central instance, in the following scenarios:
During quick discovery using HTTP classification.
During serverless discovery if IP address was entered in PRISM_Address parameter value.
PrismCentral@<DNS_NAME>: When the DNS name is associated with the Prism Central instance and was entered in PRISM_Address parameter value during
serverless discovery.
Object ID [object_id]
The ID of the Nutanix Prism Central. This field has the same value as the Name field.
PrismCentral@<IP_ADDRESS>: When the IP address is associated with the Prism Central instance, in the following scenarios:
During quick discovery using HTTP classification.
During serverless discovery if IP address was entered in PRISM_Address parameter value.
PrismCentral@<DNS_NAME>: When the DNS name is associated with the Prism Central instance and was entered in PRISM_Address parameter value during
serverless discovery.
The graphic illustrates CIs that are part of the Acropolis discovery in deployments that use Nutanix AHV for virtualization. Figure 1. Nutanix components
The graphic illustrates CIs that are part of the Acropolis discovery in deployments that use VMware software for virtualization. Figure 2. Nutanix components in deployments using VMware software
The graphic illustrates the Server and Nutanix VM Instance relationship.
CI relationships
These relationships are created to support all Nutanix discovery, regardless of hypervisor.
Nutanix Storage Pool [cmdb_ci_nutanix_storage_pool]
These relationships are created to support Nutanix discovery for components hosted on ESX clusters if you didn't run a VMware discovery.
CI
Relationship
CI
Nutanix Controller VM [cmdb_ci_nutanix_controller_vm]
Hosted on::Hosts
Nutanix Prism Central [cmdb_ci_nutanix_prism_central]
Nutanix Storage Pool [cmdb_ci_nutanix_storage_pool]
Hosted on::Hosts
Nutanix Prism Central [cmdb_ci_nutanix_prism_central]
Tag discovery
The Nutanix Components pattern collects tags and populates them in the Key Value [cmdb_key_value] table.
Table 9. Key Value [cmdb_key_value]
Field
Description
Key [key]
The category key.
Value [value]
The category value.
Configuration item [configuration_item]
References the Nutanix Host [cmdb_ci_nutanix_host] table.
Dashboard
The dashboard contains reports that query the Configuration Management Database (CMDB) and display the results. The information is displayed only after the pattern has discovered the infrastructure.
To display the dashboard, navigate to Self-Service > Dashboards > All > Nutanix.
After upgrading to Discovery Admin Workspace version 1.3.1 (August 2024 Store), you can navigate to Workspaces > Discovery Admin Workspace > Insights and use the enhanced dashboard.
