Discovery

  • Horizontal discovery of infrastructure and applications connected to TCP/IP networks.
  • The tool is provided an IP address range and a set of credentials.
  • Discovery will scan each IP address, identifying and classifying devices or hosts it receives responses from.
  • For each discovered entity, discovery adds or updates Configuration Items (CI) to the CMDB (Configuration Management Database).
  • Identifies dependencies between applications.
  • Does not relate anything to business services.
  • Approach is broad coverage.

Service Mapping

  • Top-down discovery.
  • Maps a business service.
  • One or more entry points are provided.
  • Service mapping only discovers infrastructure and apps that support a business service and maps their relationships.
  • More precise approach.
  • Once a business service has been mapped, service mapping does the following:
    • Routine rediscoveries.
    • Detects changes like the addition or removal of servers in clusters.
    • Updated software.
    • Changed configuration files.
    • Service maps created by service mapping can be used for impact analysis in incident and change management.
    • Service mapping uses discovery.
    • If you want to monitor the availability status of a business service, event management is needed.