Discovery and service mapping of application programming interface proxies

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10931774-B2
Application number	US-201916250666-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 17, 2019
Priority date	Jan 17, 2019
Publication date	Feb 23, 2021
Grant date	Feb 23, 2021

Abstract

A system includes a configuration management database (CMDB). Application programming interface (API) proxies associated with a managed network provide access to resources. The system also includes a discovery application configured to perform operations including determining a proxy uniform resource locator (URL) used to provide access to a particular resource of the resources through an API proxy of the API proxies and obtaining, from a computing device associated with the API proxy, an assignment of proxy URLs to corresponding target URLs by the API proxy. Each target URL of the corresponding target URLs address a respective resource of the resources. The proxy URLs are used to provide access to the resources through the API proxy. The operations also include selecting, from the assignment, a target URL assigned to the proxy URL, generating a mapping between the proxy URL and the target URL, and storing the mapping in the CMDB.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computing system comprising:
a configuration management database (CMDB) disposed within a computational instance of a remote network management platform, wherein the computational instance is associated with a managed network, and wherein one or more application programming interface (API) proxies associated with the managed network provide access to a plurality of resources; and
a discovery application configured to perform operations comprising:
identifying a source uniform resource locator (URL) associated with a first service operating on a computing device within the managed network, wherein the first service comprises a configuration file comprising one or more proxy URLs associated with the plurality of resources;
accessing the first service using the source URL;
detecting, on the first service, data indicative of the configuration file associated with at least a portion of the first service;
identifying at least a first proxy URL of the one or more proxy URLs by parsing the configuration file, wherein the first proxy URL is associated with the source URL, and wherein the first proxy URL is used to provide access to a particular resource of the plurality of resources through an API proxy of the one or more API proxies;
obtaining, from a computing device associated with the API proxy, an assignment of the one or more proxy URLs to one or more corresponding target URLs by the API proxy, wherein each target URL of the one or more corresponding target URLs addresses a respective resource of the plurality of resources, and wherein the one or more proxy URLs are used to provide access to the plurality of resources through the API proxy;
selecting, from the assignment, a target URL assigned to the first proxy URL used to provide access to the particular resource through the API proxy;
generating a mapping between the first proxy URL and the target URL; and
storing, in the CMDB, the mapping in one or more configuration items.

2. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein determining the first proxy URL used to provide access to the particular resource through the API proxy comprises:
detecting data, by parsing the configuration file, indicating that the computing device within the managed network is configured to transmit, to the computing device associated with the API proxy, one or more second requests addressed to the one or more proxy URLs.

3. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein obtaining the assignment comprises:
determining, based on the first proxy URL, a command configured to cause the computing device associated with the API proxy to generate data indicative of the assignment;
transmitting, to the computing device associated with the API proxy, the command and an authentication token configured to grant the discovery application access to the data; and
receiving, from the computing device associated with the API proxy, the data.

4. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein determining the first proxy URL used to provide access to the particular resource through the API proxy comprises:
receiving, from a computing device within the managed network, an indication of the first service to be discovered by the discovery application; and
receiving, from the computing device within the managed network, the first proxy URL to be discovered as part of discovery of the first service.

5. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein (i) a first portion of the plurality of resources are provided by the managed network and (ii) a second portion of the plurality of resources are provided by third-party networks.

6. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the operations further comprise:
generating a cache file that stores (i) a first time at which the assignment is obtained and (ii) the assignment;
detecting the cache file at a second time while attempting to obtain an updated version of the assignment;
determining whether the second time exceeds the first time by at least a threshold amount;
when the second time exceeds the first time by at least the threshold amount, obtaining the updated version of the assignment from the computing device associated with the API proxy; and
when the second time does not exceed the first time by at least the threshold amount, retrieving the assignment from the cache file.

7. The computing system of claim 6 , wherein the managed network is associated with a plurality of services including the first service that use the one or more API proxies to access the plurality of resources, wherein the first time is associated with mapping of the first service of the plurality of services by the discovery application, and wherein the second time is associated with mapping of a second service of the plurality of services by the discovery application, and wherein the operations further comprise:
when the second time does not exceed the first time by at least the threshold amount, determining that the cache file indicates an assignment of an additional proxy URL to an additional target URL, wherein the additional proxy URL is used by the second service to access through the API proxy the respective resource addressed by the additional target URL;
generating, based on the cache file, an additional mapping between the second service, the additional proxy URL, and the additional target URL; and
storing, in the CMDB, the additional mapping in one or more additional configuration items.

8. The computing system of claim 6 , wherein the managed network is associated with the first service, the first service uses the one or more API proxies to access one or more resources of the plurality of resources, wherein the first service is provided by a plurality of load-balanced server devices, wherein the cache file is stored by the discovery application on a proxy server device on behalf of the plurality of load-balanced server devices, wherein the first time is associated with mapping of the first service by way of a first load-balanced server device of the plurality of load-balanced server devices, and wherein the second time is associated with mapping of the first service by way of a second load-balanced server device of the plurality of load-balanced server devices.

9. The computing system of claim 6 , wherein the managed network is associated with the first service that uses the one or more API proxies to access one or more resources of the plurality of resources, wherein the first service is provided by a server device, wherein the cache file is stored on the server device, wherein the first time and the second time are each associated with mapping of the first service by way of the server device.

10. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the mapping between the first proxy URL and the target URL indicates the particular resource addressed by the target URL.

11. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the mapping between the first proxy URL and the target URL indicates a communicative relationship between (i) the particular resource addressed by the target URL and (ii) the first service.

12. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the API proxy is configured to:
receive, from an additional computing device, a request addressed to the first proxy URL, wherein the request has a first format;
modify the request to have a second format different than the first format based on attributes associated with the particular resource addressed by the target URL;
transmit the modified request to the particular resource addressed by the target URL;
receive, from the particular resource addressed by the target URL, a response to the modified request, wherein the response has a third format;
modify the response to have

Assignees

• Servicenow Inc

Inventors

• Tal Hail
• Bar Oz Tom
• Badyan Daniel
• Erblat Boris
• Feiguine Alexandra
• Aron Aviya
• Bitterfeld Robert
• Solomon Bary

Classifications

• H04L63/0281 Primary

  Proxies · CPC title

• H04L67/561 Primary

  Adding application-functional data or data for application control, e.g. adding metadata · CPC title

• H04L67/51

  Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services · CPC title

• H04L63/0227

  Filtering policies (mail message filtering H04L51/212) · CPC title

• H04L63/0272

  Virtual private networks · CPC title