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Summary of Nutanix Acropolis discovery
The ServiceNow Discovery application utilizes the Nutanix Components pattern to detect components within Nutanix Acropolis, specifically for Prism Central version 5.10 and Prism Element version 5.9.It includes a Nutanix VM Event pattern that identifies events associated with virtual machines (VMs) in the Nutanix environment, running rediscovery when state changes occur.
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Key Features
The Nutanix Components pattern employs REST APIs for data collection about Acropolis components.
Rediscovery of components is triggered by events indicating state changes, with events checked every five minutes.
Discovering resources may require updates from the ServiceNow Store, and the pattern is compatible with the ServiceNow AI Platform on Madrid patch 9 and later.
Users can enable HTTP classification for on-demand discovery without a scheduled process, although this may impact network performance.
Optional VMware component discovery can be performed prior to Nutanix discovery to view interrelations.
Key Outcomes
After configuring the necessary prerequisites, including ensuring appropriate SSL certificates and API permissions, users can effectively discover and manage their Nutanix resources within ServiceNow. The data collected populates the Configuration Management Database (CMDB), providing visibility into various components such as clusters, hosts, storage pools, and VMs. The resulting dashboard allows monitoring of discovered resources and their statuses, enhancing operational efficiency.
The ServiceNowDiscovery application uses the Nutanix Components pattern to find components of the Nutanix Acropolis solution containing Nutanix Prism Central version 5.10 or Nutanix Prism Element 5.9. The Nutanix VM Event pattern finds events created for virtual machines (VMs) in the Nutanix deployment. Discovering some of these resources requires updating the Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns application from the ServiceNow Store.
You can use this pattern on the ServiceNow AI Platform using Madrid patch 9 and later.
The Nutanix Components pattern uses REST APIs to collect information about the Acropolis deployment components.
The Nutanix VM Event pattern runs every five minutes. If there are events that indicate the change of state in one of the Nutanix components, it triggers rediscovery of Nutanix components using the Nutanix Components Pattern.
Use the following JRE keytool command to import the SSL certificates in the MID Server's keystore: <MID Installation>/jre/bin/keytool -import -v -keystore <MID Installation>jre/lib/security/cacerts.
If you must enter a password, enter the
custom password or the default password- "changeit".
Install Nutanix end-point SSL certificates for the MID Server JRE.
Verify API permissions
Verify that the user has read access to the following API requests:
(Optional) Enable the HTTP classification for using Quick Discovery
If you don't want to create a serverless discovery schedule, you can trigger discovery of the Nutanix components with the HTTP classification. This classification enables you to run the discovery using Quick Discovery. In this case, the discovery runs on a single IP address without requiring a
schedule.
To enable HTTP classification, ensure that the application scope is Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns:
Navigate to Settings > Developer.
Select Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns from the Application list.
Since the HTTP classification triggers queries of all servers with the open HTTP ports, it may lead to overloading the network and slowing down the discovery process.
Navigate to Discovery > Discovery Definition > CI Classification > HTTP.
Modify the filter to display all classifications including classifications that are not active.
Locate the Nutanix HTTP classification and set the Active attribute to true.
(Optional) Discover VMware components
To enable viewing relations between Nutanix Acropolis and VMware, run VMware discovery before Nutanix Acropolis discovery. Run the horizontal discovery for the VMware Vcenter using the VMware - vCenter Datacenters probe.
(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 may 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 click Remove.
Click 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.
Data collected by Discovery during horizontal discovery
Discovery populates the data in the CMDB when running the Nutanix Components pattern.
Table 1. 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 7. 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. This applies 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. This applies if the DNS name 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. This applies 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. This applies if the DNS name was entered in PRISM_Address
parameter value during serverless discovery.
Table 8. Key Value [cmdb_key_value]
Field
Description
Configuration item [configuration_item]
The reference to the CI for which the tag is defined.
Key [key]
The category key.
Value [value]
The category value.
Object ID [object_id]
The Object ID for the Nutanix host or Nutanix virtual machine.
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 VM software
The graphic illustrates the Server and Nutanix VM Instance relationship.
CI relationships
These relationships are created to support Nutanix discovery:
CI
Relationship
CI
Nutanix Cluster [cmdb_ci_nutanix_cluster]
Defines resources for::Gets resources from
Nutanix Storage Pool [cmdb_ci_nutanix_storage_pool]
Nutanix Prism Central [cmdb_ci_nutanix_prism_central]
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.
Figure 3. Discovery Reports Dashboard
The reports on the dashboard provide the following information. They are listed in the table by the numbers shown in the graphic.
Report
Description
1
Nutanix Clusters
Number or Nutanix clusters found.
2
Nutanix Hosts
Number of Nutanix hosts found.
3
Nutanix Storage Containers
Number of Nutanix storage containers found.
4
Nutanix Storage Container Distro
The distribution of Nutanix storage containers free space and capacity, in bytes.
5
Nutanix Storage Pool Capacity
The capacity of the Nutanix storage pool, in bytes.
6
Nutanix VM Summary
The Nutanix VMs grouped by state: On, off, terminated.
7
Nutanix Controller VMs
The Nutanix Controller VMs grouped by hypervisor type.
