AWS application ELB Service discovery with Patterns

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of AWS application ELB Service discovery with Patterns

    This discovery pattern enables ServiceNow customers to identify and map all AWS Elastic Load Balancers (ELBs) within their environment using a top-down discovery approach. ELB automatically distributes incoming application traffic across multiple targets, supporting features like TLS offloading, UDP, static IP addresses, and centralized certificate deployment. The entry point for discovery is the HTTP(s) endpoint, with outgoing relations to Amazon EC2 instances. This pattern is compatible with ServiceNow Kingston and later releases and supports Amazon Commercial Cloud Services (C2S) for government cloud environments.

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    Prerequisites

    • Run a horizontal discovery using Cloud API (CAPI) before using this top-down discovery pattern.
    • Store load balancer data in the Configuration Management Database (CMDB) and create an application service for each load balancer.
    • Set read-only permissions for specific AWS REST APIs related to ELB and EC2, which are necessary for retrieving load balancer, listener, rule, target health, and instance details.
    • Download the Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns from the ServiceNow Store for Cloud Discovery.
    • Ensure the MID Server host machine meets the system requirements documented by ServiceNow.
    • Verify REST API permissions using the provided Cloud Discovery patterns spreadsheet, which also offers details about pattern names, CI classes, and vendor documentation.
    • Optionally, test AWS REST APIs using tools like Postman following ServiceNow’s guidance.

    Data Collected

    The discovery pattern collects detailed ELB information stored in the Load Balancer Services [cmdbcilbservice] table, including:

    • Fully qualified domain name (fqdn): DNS name of the load balancer.
    • Name: Load balancer name and port in the format <LB name>:<LB port>.
    • Serial Number: Serial number formatted as ##ObjectID=<LBARN>.
    • Port: Port number of the load balancer.
    • Object ID: Unique identifier of the load balancer.
    • IP Address: IP address corresponding to the FQDN.

    Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    Using this pattern allows customers to automatically discover and maintain an accurate, up-to-date map of their AWS ELB infrastructure within the ServiceNow CMDB. This enhances cloud governance, improves visibility into load balancing resources, and supports integration with other discovery and service mapping capabilities. It also facilitates compliance with government cloud requirements through C2S support.

    Discovery uses the Amazon AWS application ELB Service discovery pattern to show all load balancers in your environment in a map.

    Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) automatically distributes incoming application traffic across multiple targets.

    The Amazon AWS application ELB Service discovery pattern supports top-down discovery. This pattern discovers all load balancers with these characteristics:
    • Use ultra-high performance, TLS offloading at scale, and centralized certificate deployment
    • Support UDP and static IP addresses for your application

    For top-down discovery, the entry point is HTTP(s) Endpoint. Outgoing relations are to Amazon EC2 instances.

    The ServiceNow AI Platform supports Amazon Commercial Cloud Services (C2S) for discovery and cloud governance. C2S is the government program that brings AWS into the Intelligence Community.

    You can use this pattern on the ServiceNow platform using Kingston or later releases.

    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.

    Prerequisites

    • Run a horizontal discovery, using Cloud API (CAPI). This is necessary because this discovery pattern supports top-down discovery only. For Cloud Discovery, you can run the horizontal discovery as usual.
    • When the load balancers data has been stored in the Configuration Management Database (CMDB), create an application service for each load balancer.
    • Set read-only permissions for these REST APIs:
      • https://elasticloadbalancing.<REGION>.amazonaws.com/?Action=DescribeLoadBalancers&LoadBalancerArns.member.1=<LB_ARN>&Version=2015-12-01
      • https://elasticloadbalancing.<REGION>.amazonaws.com/?Action=DescribeLoadBalancers&Version=2015-12-01
      • https://elasticloadbalancing.<REGION>.amazonaws.com/?Action=DescribeListeners&LoadBalancerArn=<LB_ARN>&Version=2015-12-01
      • https://elasticloadbalancing.<REGION>.amazonaws.com/?Action=DescribeRules&ListenerArn=<LISTENER_ARN>&Version=2015-12-01
      • https://elasticloadbalancing.<REGION>.amazonaws.com/?Action=DescribeTargetHealth&TargetGroupArn=<TARGET_GROUP_ARN>&Version=2015-12-01
      • https://ec2.<REGION>.amazonaws.com/?Action=DescribeInstances&Version=2016-11-15&Filter.1.Name=instance-state-name&Filter.1.Value=running&Filter.2.Name=instance-id&Filter.2.Value=<INSTANCE_ID>
    • For Cloud Discovery, download the Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns from the ServiceNow Store.
    • When installing the MID Server, ensure that the host machine meets or exceeds the MID Server system requirements published on the ServiceNow documentation site.

    Verify the REST API Permissions

    Download the Cloud Discovery patterns spreadsheet so you can grant user permissions required for running the Discovery patterns. In addition to permissions, the spreadsheet also includes useful information such as pattern names, types, CI Classes, and links to vendor documentation. New patterns are available quarterly, so check periodically to be sure you have the latest version of the spreadsheet.

    Note:
    You can test the AWS REST APIs using Postman API platform. For more information, see the How to test AWS REST API using POSTMAN [KB0782183] article in the Now Support Knowledge Base.

    Data collected by Discovery during horizontal discovery

    The discovered data includes the following tables and fields.

    Table and field Description
    Load Balancer Services [cmdb_ci_lb_service]
    Fully qualified domain name [fqdn] Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) of the load balancer. The DNS name.
    Name [name] Name of the load balancer, in the following format: <LB name>:<LB port>.
    Serial Number [serial_number] Serial number of the load balancer, in the following format: ##Object_ID=<LB_ARN>.
    Port [port] Port of the load balancer.
    Object ID [object_id] Unique identifier of the load balancer.
    IP Address [ip_address] IP address of the FQDN.