Google Cloud Platform (GCP) resource inventory discovery with Patterns

The ServiceNow Discovery application uses the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) asset inventory pattern to find GCP resources and policies. 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 pattern provides visibility for services supported by the Asset Inventory API, as well as collecting inventory data on the deployed GCP services and updating the CMDB.

The pattern collects inventory data either for all GCP-supported resources or for a preconfigured inclusion list of resources. The Cloud Inventory Resource Inclusion List contains all resource types supported by GCP Cloud Asset Inventory, except for Compute Engine resources and IAM policies. You can expand the inclusion list with additional resource types per your requirements. For more information about Google Cloud assets, see https://cloud.google.com/resource-manager/docs/cloud-asset-inventory/overview.

Request apps on the Store

Visit the ServiceNow Store website to view all the available apps and for information about submitting requests to the store. For cumulative release notes information for all released apps, see the ServiceNow Store version history release notes.

Starting with Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns version 1.18.1, you can discover the GCP storage by two types of discovery: Serverless and Cloud Discovery. Running Cloud Discovery schedules enables you to run one schedule per all your GCP projects without manually configuring separate schedules. You can also continue using Serverless discovery as before.

The enhanced Google Cloud Platform (GCP) asset inventory pattern runs queries to check the configurations on your system and trigger a discovery according to your configurations. The queries by order:

1. If you have the Discovery Pattern Launcher Parameters configured, the pattern triggers a Serverless discovery schedule.

2. If the former query carries no results, the pattern continues to query if you have the mid.gcp_resource_inventory_bucketpath MID Server property configured. If you do, the pattern runs a Cloud Discovery schedule by cloud accounts.

3. If the former query carries no results, the pattern continues to query if you have the mid.gcp_resource_inventory_bucketpath.default MID Server property configured. If you do, the pattern triggers a default Cloud Discovery schedule.

4. If none of these properties are configured, the pattern terminates gracefully.

Prerequisites

Verify the store apps are up to date

• Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns
• Visibility Content

GCP authorization for Discovery to use the Cloud Asset API

• API endpoint: https://cloudasset.googleapis.com/v1/projects/<account_id>:exportAssets
• Required one or more of the following IAM permissions on the specified resource parent:
  • cloudasset.assets.exportResource
  • cloudasset.assets.exportIamPolicy

Service Account user for the cloud storage API

The ServiceNow Cloud Service Account need to have a read-only permission from GCP to access the API endpoint - https://www.googleapis.com/storage/v1.

Note:

You can use the headers on the Encryption page to do the following:

• Download an object that is encrypted by a customer-supplied encryption key.
• Get object metadata with content hashes.

Permission to read and write to a Cloud Storage Bucket

• Storage Object Creator
• Storage Object Viewer
• Storage Object Admin

Create a cloud storage bucket using Google Cloud console

1. Go to the Google Cloud console.
2. From the Navigation menu, select Cloud Storage > Buckets.
3. To create a new bucket, select + Create.
4. On the Create a bucket page, fill in the bucket information.

   Field	Description
   Name your bucket	Enter a globally unique name for your bucket.
   Choose where to store your data	Select a Location type and Location where the bucket data will be permanently stored. Location type: Multi-region, for global storage (for example, us, eu, asia). Location: List of the Cloud Storage locations available for storing your data.
   Choose a storage class for your data	Select the appropriate storage class for your needs (for example, Standard, Nearline, Coldline, or Archive).
   Choose how to control access to objects	Select whether or not your bucket enforces public access prevention.
   Choose how to protect object data	Configure protection tools, if required.

5. Select Create.
   Note:

   For more information, see Google Cloud Storage documentation.

Retention Policy for the storage bucket

Ensure that the Retention Policy for the storage bucket is not active. If the Retention Policy is active, the auto-generated inventory data file cannot be deleted by the pattern.

Create a Serverless discovery schedule

Create a discovery schedule to perform targeted discovery of GCP asset inventory.

1. Navigate to Discovery > Discovery Schedules.
2. Click New and then fill in the form.

   Table 1. Discovery Schedule form

   Field	Description
   Name	Name for the Discovery schedule. For example, Discover GCP Asset Inventory.
   Discover	Discover type. Select Serverless.
   MID Server	Name of the MID Server.
   Run	Option to select when should the next discovery run.

3. Right-click the header of the Discovery Schedule form and select Save.
4. Click the Serverless Execution Patterns tab, click New, and then fill in the form.

   Table 2. Serverless Execution Pattern form

   Field	Description
   Name	Name for this Serverless Execution Pattern. For example, Discover GCP Asset Inventory.
   Pattern	Select the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) Resource Inventory pattern.
   Proxy Host	Fully qualified domain name of the machine on which you are installing the proxy server. Specify Global.
   Active	Option for enabling this schedule for discovery. Select this check box to enable discovery.

5. Select Submit.
6. In the Discovery Pattern Launcher Parameters tab, configure the following parameters with the relevant values:

   Parameter	Value
   cloud_account_id	The Project ID within GCP.
   full_path_file	The complete file path of the storage bucket. For example: gs://<bucketname>.
   cloud_cred_id	The sysid of the GCP credentials.
   cloud_datacenter_type	cmdb_ci_google_datacenter

Storage discovery configurations with MID Server properties

1. Configure the mid.gcp_resource_inventory_bucketpath property.

   1. Navigate to All > MID Server > Properties and filter the list by Name start with mid.gcp.
   2. Select mid.gcp_resource_inventory_bucketpath.
   3. fill in the form.
      1. Configure the property Name field to include your account ID as follows: mid.gcp_resource_inventory_bucketpath.<Cloud Account Id>.
      2. Fill in the Value field with the bucket URI, which is the complete file path of the storage bucket. For example: gs://<bucketname>.
      3. In the MID Server field, leave it blank to set a MID Server property that affects all MID Servers. To set a MID Server property for a particularMID Server, select the preferred server.
      4. Select Update.
2. Configure the mid.gcp_resource_inventory_bucketpath.default property.

   1. Navigate to All > MID Server > Properties and filter the list by Name start with mid.gcp.
   2. Select mid.gcp_resource_inventory_bucketpath.default.
   3. Fill in the Value field with the bucket URI, which is the complete file path of the storage bucket. For example: gs://<bucketname>.
   4. Select Update.

For more information, see Export asset metadata from one project to another

Cloud inventory resource inclusion list

• To collect inventory data for resources supported by GCP, in ServiceNow AI Platform, navigate to Cloud Inventory Resource Inclusion List and clear all GCP table records.

  Figure 1. Cloud Inventory Resource Inclusion List

  
  
  

• Fine-tune GCP resource discovery using the Cloud Inventory Resource Inclusion List.

  If your deployment has custom patterns for GCP discovery, ensure that you do not discover GCP resources twice:

  1. Ensure that the application scope is Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns:
     1. Navigate to Settings > Developer.
     2. Select Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns from the Application list.
  2. Navigate to System Definitions > Tables.
  3. Open the Cloud Inventory Resource Inclusion List [sa_cloud_inventory_resource_whitelist] table.
  4. Under Related Links, click Show List.
  5. Select resource types for which you have custom patterns, and select Delete from the Actions on selected rows list.
  The Cloud Inventory Resource Inclusion List is predefined with common services. You can expand the list with additional resource types that you want the pattern to discover, as follows:

  Note:

  If you modify the list provided in the base system, it is no longer updated automatically in application updates. You need to maintain customized lists yourself.
  1. Open the Cloud Inventory Resource Inclusion List [sa_cloud_inventory_resource_whitelist] table.
  2. Click New.
  3. Fill in the form, and then click Submit.
     Note:

     The names of additional resource types must conform to the appropriate vendor naming conventions.

     Field	Description
     Cloud Vendor	The vendor of the resource type: GCP.
     Resource Type	The GCP resource type value.
     Application	The application scope: Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns.

  The changes are applied the next time you run the pattern.

Data collected by Discovery during horizontal discovery

This pattern discovers data that provides visibility for all GCP services in your organization. The discovered data includes the following tables and fields.

Table and field	Description
Main CI [cmdb_ci_cmp_resource]
object_id	The ID of the item. The item is accessed with this URL.
name	The name of the resource.
resource_type	The asset resource type, according to the data in the JSON file.
Key Value [cmdb_key_value]
Key	The GCP tag key name.
Value	The GCP tag value name.

The Dependency Views map shows the discovered Configuration Items (CIs) in your organization and the relationships between them. Here, the only meaningful relationship between the CIs is the one that helps Discovery identify them.

Each GCP Inventory CI is related either to a Logical Datacenter (LDC) CI or to a Cloud Service Account CI. In this example, the Inventory CI is related to a Cloud Service Account CI.

Figure 2. Dependency Views map showing Cloud Service Account CI

CI relationships

These relationships are created to support GCP asset inventory discovery:

CI	Relationship	CI
For Global Resources:
Main CI [cmdb_ci_cmp_resource]	Contained by::Contains	Cloud Service Accounts
For Regional Resources:
Main CI [cmdb_ci_cmp_resource]	HostedOn::Hosts	Logical Datacenter (LDC)