Cloud Discovery enables IT departments of companies to collect detailed information about their cloud-based infrastructure. Cloud Discovery finds resources in major cloud service providers.

Cloud Discovery finds resources in the following cloud providers: Amazon AWS Cloud, Microsoft Azure Cloud, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), IBM Cloud Platform, and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). Cloud Discovery collects the logical datacenters associated with the account, as well as any subaccounts. Collecting information about resources on the cloud is relevant for companies, organizations, and cloud companies providing Platform-as-a-Service solutions.

Cloud Discovery provides cost savings, improved security, reduced risk, change governance, and improved service health

Service account-based discovery

Service account-based discovery finds all the resources in a service account. This kind of discovery collects metadata using the cloud provider's APIs, then populates the Machine Instance CMDB table with basic attributes. Service account discovery has visibility into tags, which helps data reporting and workflow automation. For example, cloud events can be used to trigger discovery on-demand on target services. This mechanism helps Cloud Discovery to identify changes and automatically update the CMDB.

IP-based discovery

The other type of Cloud Discovery, IP-based discovery, uses the meta-data collected from service account-based discovery to collect more detailed information. This method provides data on installed software, process information, TCP/IP connections, and so on.

Cloud discovery methods

Cloud Discovery uses discovery patterns to query devices and applications and collect the information about them. A pattern is a sequence of commands whose purpose it is to detect attributes of a CI and its outbound connections. There are many preconfigured patterns available with Cloud Discovery. In addition, new patterns become available on the ServiceNow Store regularly.

Your instance can also detect notifications and alerts from the cloud environment. These events are sent via a REST connection to your instance. Your instance can then process these events and update CIs in the CMDB accordingly.
Note: Event-driven discovery for Amazon AWS Cloud, Microsoft Azure Cloud, and Google Cloud Platform does not require Cloud Provisioning and Governance.

Managing your cloud resources

The instance displays all results from a Cloud Discovery in the Discovery Home page. You can drill down into specific schedules, discovered devices, cloud resources, and errors. Sort these results for a closer look and view discovery trends for the devices you find. Error results give you specific suggestions for fixing any problems you encounter.

Cloud Discovery on the Now Platform

Cloud Discovery uses the MID Server to access external devices and applications on an enterprise's local network. For more information on the capabilities of MID Server with respect to Cloud Discovery, see MID Server.

Cloud Provisioning and Governance depends on the information found by Cloud Discovery. Cloud Provisioning and Governance offers a single interface to access cloud resources, publish cloud offerings to a catalog, and manage the usage of those resources.

In addition, the following business units and products of Now Platform use the information that Cloud Discovery brings: IT Service Management, Security Incident Response, Hardware Asset Management, Software Asset Management, Governance, Risk, and Compliance, and Application Portfolio Management.