ServiceNow introduced with London Patch 10 the ability to update the Discovery and Service Mapping patterns directly from the ServiceNow Store.

In the store, you can enter Discovery and Service or Patterns and you will find the Discovery and Service Mapping Patterns Product. Here you can see, which is the latest published version, the compatibility information and release details.

This HI Service KB Article describes the install process.

You can also directly browse to System Applications > All available Applications > All and search there for Discovery. There you can see the status of the application. If you want to install it, you can do it here too, if there is an update available, you would see it also and could perform the install.

I like this new integration into the application catalog and service to get patterns outside of instance version upgrades.