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Summary of Nutanix Acropolis discovery
The ServiceNow Discovery application uses the Nutanix Components pattern to discover Nutanix Acropolis infrastructure components, including Nutanix Prism Central (version 2024.3.1.8 or later) and Prism Element (7.0.1.6 or later).It supports Nutanix API versions v1-3 and the newer v4, with v4 discovery introduced starting in version 1.29.0 of the Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns.This discovery populates the ServiceNow CMDB with detailed configuration items (CIs) representing Nutanix components such as clusters, hosts, storage pools, storage containers, virtual machines, and controller VMs.
Support for Nutanix v4 API: Enables new pool and container records without updating existing ones; requires Prism Central 7.3 or later.
Event-Driven Rediscovery: Nutanix VM and Host event patterns detect state changes and trigger rediscovery, running every five minutes by default but requiring enabled scheduled jobs.
Integration with VMware: Supports linking Nutanix components hosted on ESX clusters by running VMware probe discovery first.
Tag Discovery: Collects Nutanix host and VM tags into the Key Value [cmdbkeyvalue] table; can be disabled to improve performance if numerous tags exist.
Configurable Batch Sizes: The batch size for deleting redundant Nutanix VM-host relationships can be adjusted for performance tuning.
Serverless Discovery Scheduling: Allows creation of serverless schedules targeting Nutanix component discovery via REST APIs.
Detailed CI Relationships: Establishes relationships among Nutanix clusters, hosts, VMs, storage pools, containers, and Prism Central to represent infrastructure topology accurately.
Prerequisites and Configuration
Ensure the latest versions of Discovery, Service Mapping Patterns, Visibility Content, and CMDB CI Class Models are installed.
Deploy a dedicated MID Server with network access to Nutanix Prism Central and Prism Element, including installation of Nutanix endpoint SSL certificates into the MID Server's JRE.
Verify API permissions for either v1-3 or v4 APIs with read-only access as specified.
Set the MID Server property to enable Nutanix v4 discovery by specifying the exact v4 version.
Configure basic authentication credentials for API access.
Create a serverless discovery schedule to automate Nutanix Acropolis discovery.
Run VMware probe discovery before Nutanix discovery when integrating with ESX clusters to correctly link components.
Optionally disable CI tag discovery if performance issues occur due to a high volume of tags.
Data Collected and CMDB Population
Discovery populates detailed attributes for various Nutanix CIs such as:
Cluster: Name, IP address, cluster ID, version, subnets, timezone, hypervisor types, NTP servers, node count, and block serial numbers.
Host: CPU cores, threads, speed, count, RAM, and serial number (not applicable in v4).
Storage Pool and Container: Names, IDs, sizes, replication, deduplication, compression, and erasure coding settings.
Virtual Machine Instance: Name, UUID, CPUs, memory, power state, and description.
Prism Central: Name, object ID, associated IP or DNS name.
CI Relationships
Relationships support full infrastructure mapping, including:
Clusters contain hosts and storage pools; hosts register VMs.
VMs hosted on clusters or VMware clusters depending on virtualization.
Storage pools contain storage containers.
Prism Central manages Nutanix clusters and hosts.
Controller VMs run on Nutanix or VMware VMs depending on environment.
Operational Insights and Dashboard
Discovered data is visualized in a Nutanix dashboard accessible via Self-Service > Dashboards > All > Nutanix or within the Discovery Admin Workspace Insights after upgrading to version 1.3.1. This dashboard provides actionable visibility into the Nutanix infrastructure discovered.
Event Discovery Configuration
Ensure Nutanix Components discovery has populated Prism Central CIs.
Verify MID Servers have appropriate capabilities for Nutanix event discovery.
Enable the Nutanix event discovery scheduled job to detect VM and host state changes and trigger rediscovery.
Optionally restrict
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.
