How to Perform Servicenow vCenter Discovery | Discovering VMware using vCenter Discovery

Recently I was asked to implement ServiceNow Vcenter Discovery to discover all the VMware’s, I had no clue were to start with !

I looked around ServiceNow community to see If any article, blogs / threads regarding Servicenow vCenter Discovery that can help me kick start with the Vcenter discovery. Ugggghhh ! no luck..

How to Run Servicenow vCenter Discovery ???

I couldn’t find any content fulfilling Servicenow vCenter Discovery procedure that can easy my job, all I could find was broken information’s here and there… !

Later, I started off with doing some research to understand how Servicenow vCenter Discovery works and what all would be needed as a part of requirement gathering. Within a week of research, I ended up in creating a requirement gathering template which i shared with the relevant team to enable to ports bi-directionally to establish the communication.

I will share the screenshot of template below which you can use to create your own requirement gathering template…

Step 1# (Requirements)

Check if all the Given IP are reachable and ports are opened. You would need Source IPs (Usually it will be midserver IP), Destination IPs (All the IP of vCenter which needs to be discovered). Ports to be opened: 9443,5480,443 and if any other custom ports exist must be opened.

Step 2# (Validating Creds and Ports)

Acquire the Credential’s which are required for ServiceNow vCenter discovery and configure them in ServiceNow. You can navigate to ‘Credentials’ module under ‘discovery’ module and click on ‘new’ button > you’ll have interceptor asking to choose a type of credentials. Choose ‘VMware Credentials’.

Note: The credential type depends on the type of Virtual Machine (SSH / Win). Windows Credentials are not required when you have a valid VM Credentials. (This is not true in all the cases).

If you use a domain account to access vCenter, specify the domain with the user name in the credential record in one of the supported formats, such as Domain\UserName. The VMware credentials must have read-only role and License Admin privilege in vCenter.

Validating Creds: Once done, Save the record and validate the credentials by clicking on the ‘validate creds’ in related links. Use a valid IP (Destination IP) and Port (443) In the popup to validate the creds.

Validating Ports: To make sure the ports are opened you can login to mid server and do the telnet command with IP and mentioned port to make sure the connections are open for communication.

Almost a success with Servicenow vCenter Discovery untill here...

...NOW THE FUN START...

Step 3#

Once the Connection and Creds are validated you can create a discovery schedule by navigating to > Discovery > Discovery Schedules.

Click on New > and Populate the below highlighted fields info:

Name: Name the discovery schedule with a proper standard

Discover: choose ‘Config Item’

Mid Server selection Method: ‘Based on existing infra config, choose the option’ > for vCenter discovery choose Configuration item.

Mid server: Choose a mid-server for which you have requested port opening.

Location: decide the location and choose from the reference field.

Time : When to run the schedule choose a time.

Once filled with all the above info, Submit the record.

Step 4#

Open the discovery schedule which was created and you would find few related lists as below, Click on New.

Update the ‘Discovery IP range’ form as below and save the record which will show a related list.

Once saved, on the related list tab ‘Discovery Range item IPs’ > click on new > and enter the list of IPs that you have or which you need to discover. Save the record.

Step 5#

Now, navigate back to the ‘discovery schedule’ module which you created there you would find the IPs been related to the created schedule (refer image below). Now you are all set to run the discovery.

Step 6#

Now click on the related links > Discover Now. The Discovery for this schedule must run now if you have configured it all right.

how to servicenow vCenter Discovery

...Time for Results...

You can track the progress and the process of your discovery in the ‘Discovery status’ and ‘Discovery Result’ tabs. All the discovered VM’s will be updated in ‘cmdb_ci_vcenter’ table.

NOTE : This article is based on my implementation journey ,its open for feeback / corrections / questions !

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MF Sohail Khilji | Servicenow Developer / Consultant.

LinkedIn >https://www.linkedin.com/in/mf-sohail-khilji/