Data collected by Discovery on storage devices

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated August 5, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Data collected by Discovery on storage devices

    Discovery in ServiceNow identifies and classifies detailed information about various storage devices and their components in your infrastructure. It collects data on storage disks, file shares, pools, ports, host bus adapters (HBAs), storage servers, and volumes, then organizes this data into corresponding CMDB tables. This enables you to maintain an accurate, comprehensive inventory of your storage environment, supporting better asset management, troubleshooting, and capacity planning.

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    Key Features

    • Storage Disk Data: Includes disk name, associated host, interface type, size, free space, manufacturer, and model ID stored in cmdbcistoragedisk.
    • Storage File Shares: Captures file share names and their paths in cmdbcistoragefileshare.
    • Storage Pools: Records pool name, size, free space, and hosting CI reference in cmdbcistoragepool.
    • Storage Ports: Collects port name, unique WWPN, and speed in cmdbcistorageport.
    • Storage HBAs: Captures HBA name, model ID, and associated computer CI in cmdbcistoragehba.
    • Storage Servers: Includes server name, manufacturer, model, operating system and version, and description in cmdbcistorageserver.
    • Storage Volumes: Records volume name, unique ID, state, size, and storage type in cmdbcistoragevolume.
    • Relationship Mapping: Automatically establishes relationships between storage components to represent how volumes, disks, file shares, and servers are interconnected.

    Storage Relationships

    Discovery creates precise relationships for storage components, which are essential for understanding dependencies and data flow:

    • Storage Area Network (SAN): Maps relationships such as storage volumes exporting to Fibre Channel or iSCSI disks, helping to visualize SAN architecture.
    • Network Attached Storage (NAS): Resolves hostnames or IP addresses of remotely mounted file shares on client servers to map file shares back to storage servers accurately. This is consistent across Linux and Windows hosts.
    • Key Relationship Examples:
      • Storage Volume exports to or imports from Fibre Channel Disk or iSCSI Disk.
      • NAS File System is allocated from or to Storage File Share.

    Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    By leveraging Discovery’s detailed collection and relationship mapping of storage devices, you gain:

    • Comprehensive visibility into storage infrastructure components and their interconnections.
    • Accurate CMDB data to support impact analysis, change management, and incident response related to storage assets.
    • Improved asset lifecycle management by capturing manufacturer, model, and capacity details.
    • Efficient troubleshooting and capacity planning enabled by knowing free space and device relationships.
    • Unified view of SAN and NAS storage environments across heterogeneous operating systems.

    Discovery identifies and classifies information about storage devices.

    Table 1. Resources discovered on the Storage Disks [cmdb_ci_storage_disk] table
    Field Description
    Name Name of the storage disk.
    Computer Reference to the host CI.
    Interface Interface type with which the storage disk is connected to the host.
    Size Size of the storage disk.
    Free disk space (GB) Free space in GV available on the disk.
    Manufacturer Manufacturer of the storage disk.
    Model ID Model name of the disk.
    Table 2. Resources discovered on the Storage File Shares [cmdb_ci_storage_fileshare] table
    Field Description
    Name Name of the CI.
    Path Path to the file share.
    Table 3. Resources discovered on the Storage Pools [cmdb_ci_storage_pool] table
    Field Description
    Name Name of the storage pool.
    Size Size of the storage pool.
    Free space Free space available in the pool.
    Hosted by Reference to the CMDB CI.
    Table 4. Resources discovered on the Storage Ports [cmdb_ci_storage_port] table
    Field Description
    Name Name of the storage port.
    WWPN Unique Worldwide Port Name (WWPN) for the storage port.
    Speed Speed of the storage port.
    Table 5. Resources discovered on the Storage HBAs [cmdb_ci_storage_hba] table
    Field Description
    Name Name of the Storage Host Bus Adapter (HBA).
    Model ID Model name of the HBA.
    Computer Reference to the computer CI.
    Table 6. Resources discovered on the Storage Servers [cmdb_ci_storage_server] table
    Field Description
    Name Name of the CI.
    Manufacturer Manufacturer of the storage server.
    Model ID Model name of the storage server.
    Operating System Operating system (OS) of the storage server.
    OS Version OS version of the storage server.
    Description Short description of the storage server.
    Table 7. Resources discovered on the Storage Volumes [cmdb_ci_storage_volume] table
    Field Description
    Name Name of the storage volume.
    Object ID Unique ID for the storage volume.
    State State of the storage volume.
    Size Size of the storage volume.
    Storage Type Type of storage volume.

    Storage relationships

    Discovery establishes the correct relationships between Network-Attached Storage (NAS) storage devices and remotely mounted client servers that consume the storage. Discovery maps NAS file shares. It maps by taking the IP or hostname of a remote mounted disk on the client computer. It then matches it to the IP or hostname of the storage server providing the exported file system.

    Discovery creates the following relationships for storage CIs running on Storage Area Networks.

    Table 8. SAN CI relationships
    Parent Component Relationship Child Component
    Storage Volume [cmdb_ci_storage_volume] Exports to::Imports from Fibre Channel Disk [cmdb_ci_fc_disk]
    Storage Volume [cmdb_ci_storage_volume] Exports to::Imports from iSCSI [cmdb_ci_iscsi_disk]

    Discovery maps NAS file shares. It maps by resolving the hostname of a remote mounted disk on the client computer to an IP address. It then matches it to the IP address of the storage server that provides the exported file system. Discovery extracts the hostname or IP address from the NAS path to determine the identity of the storage server. If the hostname is an actual hostname, the system immediately resolves that value into an IP address. It also stores it in the nas_ip_address field of the NAS File System [cmdb_ci_nas_file_system] table.

    Discovery creates the following relationships for storage CIs running on Network Attached Storage (NAS). These relationships are the same between Linux and Windows operating system hosts.

    Table 9. NAS CI relationships
    Parent Component Relationship Child Component
    NAS File System [cmdb_ci_nas_file_system] Allocated from::Allocated to Storage File Share [cmdb_ci_storage_fileshare]