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Summary of Nutanix Acropolis discovery
The ServiceNow Discovery application leverages the Nutanix Components pattern to identify components within Nutanix Acropolis environments that use Nutanix Prism Central version 2024.3.1.8 or Prism Element 7.0.1.6.It utilizes REST APIs for data collection and supports Nutanix API versions v1–3 and v4, with v4 discovery introduced in version 1.29.0 of Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns.Event discovery patterns monitor virtual machine (VM) and host state changes to trigger rediscovery, improving CMDB accuracy.
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Prerequisites and Configuration
Application Versions: Ensure Discovery, Service Mapping Patterns, Visibility Content, and CMDB CI Class Models are up to date.
MID Server: Deploy a dedicated MID Server with network access to Nutanix Prism Element and Prism Central. Import Nutanix SSL certificates into the MID Server’s Java keystore to enable secure communications.
API Permissions: Verify read-only access to required Nutanix REST API endpoints for both v1–3 and v4 APIs. Prism Central must be at least version 7.3 to support v4 APIs.
Discovery Settings: Enable Nutanix v4 discovery by configuring the MID Server property with the exact v4 version. Configure basic authentication credentials for access.
Scheduling: Create serverless discovery schedules targeting Nutanix components to perform efficient and focused discovery runs.
VMware Integration: To link Nutanix components hosted on ESX clusters to their VMware clusters, run VMware probe discovery before Nutanix discovery.
Performance Tuning: Optionally disable CI tag discovery to improve performance if many tags exist. Adjust the batch size for deleting redundant relationships using the snitompattern.nutanixrelationsdeletionbatchsize property.
Event Discovery: Enable scheduled jobs for Nutanix VM and Host event discovery patterns to detect state changes and trigger rediscovery, supporting v4 APIs from version 1.31.0 onwards.
Data Collected and CMDB Impact
Discovery populates key Nutanix configuration items (CIs) in the CMDB, including:
Nutanix Cluster: Name, IP addresses, cluster ID, version, subnets, timezone, hypervisor types, NTP servers, node count, and block serial numbers.
Nutanix Host: Host name, object ID, CPU cores, threads, speed, RAM, and serial number (not for v4).
Storage Pool and Storage Container: Names, IDs, sizes, replication, deduplication, compression, and erasure coding settings.
Nutanix Virtual Machine Instance: Name, UUID, CPUs, memory, power state, and description.
Nutanix Prism Central: Name and object ID reflecting the multi-cluster manager, identified by IP or DNS.
Tag information is collected and stored in the Key Value [cmdbkeyvalue] table, linking categories and values to Nutanix hosts and VMs.
CI Relationships
Discovery establishes relationships that represent dependencies and associations between Nutanix components and other infrastructure items, ensuring accurate topology mapping:
Clusters contain Hosts and Storage Pools.
Hosts register Virtual Machine Instances.
Virtual Machines run on Hosts or VMware instances.
Storage Pools contain Storage Containers.
Clusters are managed by Prism Central instances.
For AHV clusters, Controller VMs run on Nutanix VMs and define resources for storage pools.
For ESX clusters, Controller VMs run on VMware VMs if VMware discovery is performed; otherwise, they are hosted on Prism Central.
Dashboard and Reporting
The Nutanix discovery dashboard provides visual reports on discovered Nutanix infrastructure within the CMDB, available under Self-Service > Dashboards > All > Nutanix. The Discovery Admin Workspace (version 1.3.1 and later) offers enhanced insights for managing Nutanix discovery data.
Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers
Automates comprehensive discovery of Nutanix Acropolis components and their relationships, improving CMDB accuracy and infrastructure visibility.
Supports modern Nutanix API versions, including v4, enabling up-to-date data collection and integration.
Event-driven rediscovery ensures the CMDB reflects real-time state changes in Nutanix VMs and hosts.
Integration with VMware discovery enhances cross-platform visibility for environments using Nutanix storage on ESX clusters.
Configurable performance options allow tuning discovery to your environment’s scale and tag complexity.
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.
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 a custom
password or the default password - "changeit".
Install Nutanix end-point SSL certificates for the MID Server JRE.
Verify API permissions for v1-3
Verify that the user has read-only access to the following API requests:
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.
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.
