Software discovery and normalization

  • Release version: Washingtondc
  • Updated February 1, 2024
  • 4 minutes to read
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    Summary of Software Discovery and Normalization

    This section outlines how to leverage ServiceNow Discovery or Microsoft SCCM to discover software installations within your environment and integrate this data into the ServiceNow AI Platform after importing your entitlements. Effective software discovery and normalization are crucial for managing software assets accurately and efficiently.

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    Key Features

    • Discovery Integration: Automatically populates the Software Installations table, facilitating software normalization and reconciliation. Ensure the Discovery plugin is activated for functionality.
    • SCCM Integration: Integrate Microsoft SCCM, either independently or alongside Discovery, to identify software on devices. Specific plugins for SCCM 2012 and 2016 must be installed, with an emphasis on transitioning to the Service Graph connector for future compatibility.
    • Normalization Process: Compares discovered software information against a repository of normalized equivalents, enhancing accuracy in reconciliation and license position calculations.
    • Normalization Suggestions: Automatically generated suggestions for improving normalization based on updates, allowing for manual acceptance or rejection of changes.
    • Machine Learning: Utilize machine learning to enhance normalization rates for unrecognized software in real time.

    Key Outcomes

    Normalization provides a definitive inventory of discovered software, essential for audit readiness and IT operations. It streamlines reconciliation of software entitlements by standardizing installation data, thereby improving reporting accuracy and aiding in effective planning for software audits. Additionally, normalization suggestions and custom rules allow for tailored management of software products in your environment, ensuring comprehensive oversight and compliance.

    After you've imported your entitlements, use ServiceNow Discovery or Microsoft SCCM to discover software installations in your environment and transfer that data into the ServiceNow AI Platform.

    Figure 1. Infographic showing setting up of ServiceNow Discovery or Microsoft SCCM
    This graphic provides an overview of how to setup either ServiceNow Discovery or Microsoft SCCM.

    While you may use Discovery Home for datacenters and Microsoft SCCM for desktop environments, you can integrate other third-party discovery solutions with CMDB to support Software Asset Management. To integrate a different discovery solution, add it manually, or you can download an application, from the ServiceNow Store. For more information about integrating a discovery source manually, see the Customer Success Center.

    To learn more about collecting data after you've integrated with both Discovery and SCCM, see Collect software data with either SCCM or Discovery.

    Discovery integration

    ServiceNow Discovery is used to automatically populate the Software Installations table so the software can be normalized and reconciled.

    Note:
    To use Discovery, the Discovery plugin must be activated.
    Discovery uses patterns in the discovery process that can be created or customized. The base system contains a wide range of patterns that cover most industry standard network devices and applications. The following are some of the base system patterns used by Software Asset Management.
    • Citrix XenApp
    • Citrix XenDesktop,
    • VMware vCenter
    • Microsoft SQL Server
    • Microsoft Exchange Server
    • Oracle Database Server

    You can also customize other patterns for Software Asset Management. For more information, see Create or modify patterns.

    Discovered software is stored in the Software Installations [cmdb_sam_sw_install] table.

    When software install records are written to the Software Installations table, a business rule verifies whether the unique combination of the discovered publisher, discovered product, and discovered version exist in the Discovery Model table.
    • If so, the reference to the discovery model is set in the Software Installations table.
    • If not, a new record is created in the Discovery Model table, and that discovery model reference is set in the Software Installations table.

    After discovery, normalization is run.

    For more information on Discovery, see Discovery with Software Asset Management.

    SCCM integration

    You can use SCCM by itself or with Discovery Home to identify software on your devices.

    Note:
    While you may use Microsoft SCCM for discovering software installations in your desktop environments, you can integrate other third-party tools.

    Both Microsoft SCCM 2012 v2 and 2016 plugins are certified with Software Asset Management. The corresponding Microsoft SCCM Integration plugin must be installed to integrate Microsoft SCCM with Software Asset Management.

    Microsoft SCCM Integration plugins:
    • Integration — Microsoft SCCM 2012 v2 (com.snc.integration.sccm2012v2) plugin
    • Integration — Microsoft SCCM 2016 (com.snc.integration.sccm2016) plugin
    Microsoft SCCM Software Usage plugins:
    • Integration — Microsoft SCCM 2012 v2 Software Usage (com.snc.samp_usage_sccm) plugin
    • Integration — Microsoft SCCM 2016 Software Usage (com.snc.samp.usage_sccm_2016) plugin

    The Integration — Microsoft SCCM 2016 plugin is compatible with SCCM versions 1606, 1906, 1910, and 2002.

    Important:
    These Microsoft SCCM plugins will be deprecated in the Tokyo release. If you are integrating with SCCM for the first time, request and install the Service Graph connector for Microsoft SCCM application from theServiceNow Store instead. If you have already activated one of the Microsoft SCCM plugins on your ServiceNow instance, use the Migration Readiness Tool for Service Graph Connector for SCCM store application to prepare your instance for migration from the Microsoft SCCM plugin to the Service Graph connector. See Service Graph connector for Microsoft SCCM for more information on the Service Graph connector.

    For more information on SCCM and how to import your data into your instance, see Microsoft SCCM software usage.

    Normalization

    The normalization process compares the discovered publisher, discovered product, and discovered version and edition values against the ServiceNow repository of normalized equivalents. Matches are added to the corresponding normalized fields (publisher, product, version, and edition) of the Discovery Model table. The normalized fields are then used to reconcile entitlements purchased, and to compute license positions.

    For example, the discovered publisher Microsoft Corp could be normalized to Microsoft for the normalized publisher field.

    The normalization process also looks for pattern matches between discovered fields and normalized values, and updates the normalized fields accordingly.

    A schedule job runs to pull in normalized content and pattern updates daily, but you can change the frequency that the schedule job is run. When there are changes to a normalization rule, applicable normalized and partially normalized Discovery models are renormalized with the updated values.

    Evaluate suggestions to normalize discovery models that were manually normalized using the Normalization Suggestions feature. Suggestions are automatically identified if there is a difference between the updated normalization content and your content. Because the content from the updates contains the most up-to-date information, using the content provided helps to keep your software installs accurate.

    You can opt in to the Software Asset Management Content Service that enables you to provide missed and not fully normalized software discovery models to ServiceNow for research. New content and rules created are provided back to customers to continually improve software normalization.

    Benefits of normalization

    • Normalization creates a definitive list of the discovered software in your organization. Organizations need a thorough inventory of its installed software whether for software audit readiness or IT operations. Without normalization, your organization will be challenged with multiple names for the same publisher, which requires a substantial effort to rationalize and dilutes the accuracy and value of the reports you run.
    • Normalization improves the accuracy and efficiency of reconciliation for your software entitlements. By using the normalized values in the discovery models to map against the software entitlements it has acquired, resulting in more accurate reconciliation results. This makes it easier to plan for and complete software audits knowing that the counts are accurate and that they match the entitlement records.
    • The normalization process allows standardizing installation data from multiple discovery tools.