Service mapping based on discovered keywords

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11108647-B2
Application number	US-201916247272-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 14, 2019
Priority date	Jan 14, 2019
Publication date	Aug 31, 2021
Grant date	Aug 31, 2021

Abstract

A computing system is disposed within a computational instance of a remote network management platform associated with a managed network. The computing system (i) performs a discovery process that identifies attributes of computing devices and software applications disposed within the managed network; (ii) generates a list of keywords based on the identified attributes as stored, including a particular keyword associated with a first computing device or a first software application of those disposed within the managed network; (iii) searches for the particular keyword in one or more files from the managed network; (iv) determines that the particular keyword is included in a file associated with a second computing device or a second software application of those disposed within the managed network; and (v) defines an operational mapping between: (a) the first computing device or the first software application and (b) the second computing device or the second software application.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computing system is configured to run a computational instance of a remote network management platform that is associated with a managed network, wherein the computing system, comprises one or more processors, a configuration management database (CMDB), and a memory, wherein the memory is accessible by the one or more processors, and wherein the memory stores instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to:
perform a discovery process that identifies attributes of computing devices and software applications disposed within the managed network;
store, in the CMDB, the identified attributes;
generate a list of keywords based on the identified attributes as stored, wherein a combination of keywords in the list of keywords is associated with a first computing device or a first software application of those disposed within the managed network;
search for the combination of keywords in one or more files from the managed network that are associated with additional computing devices or additional software applications of those disposed within the managed network, wherein the combination of keywords comprises a first keyword being within a threshold number of characters from a second keyword in the one or more files;
determine that the combination of keywords is included in a file associated with a second computing device or a second software application of those disposed within the managed network;
define an operational mapping between: (i) the first computing device or the first software application and (ii) the second computing device or the second software application;
increase a confidence value of the operational mapping based on the combination of keywords being included in the file associated with the second computing device or the second software application, wherein the confidence value indicates an expected accuracy of the operational mapping; and
store, in the CMDB, a representation of the operational mapping based on the confidence value.

2. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the computing system is configured to:
determine that the confidence value of the operational mapping is above a threshold confidence value, wherein the computing device stores the representation of the operational mapping based on the confidence value of the operational mapping being above the threshold confidence value.

3. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the computing system is configured to:
determine that the confidence value of the operational mapping is below a threshold confidence value; and
prompt a user of the managed network to approve the operational mapping based on the determined confidence value being below the threshold confidence value.

4. The computing system of claim 2 , wherein determining the confidence value of the operational mapping is based on an occurrence frequency of the combination of keywords in the one or more files from the managed network.

5. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein performing the discovery process that identifies the attributes of the computing devices and the software applications disposed within the managed network comprises causing a proxy server disposed within the managed network to identify the attributes of the computing devices and the software applications disposed within the managed network.

6. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the computing system is configured to include text files and exclude binary files from the search for the combination of keywords in the one or more files from the managed network.

7. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the identified attributes for each computing device comprises an IP address, a port number, an application identifier, or a device identifier, or any combination thereof.

8. A method for use in connection with a computational instance of a remote network management platform that is associated with a managed network, the method comprising:
performing a discovery process that identifies attributes of computing devices and software applications disposed within the managed network;
storing, in a configuration management database (CMDB) of the remote network management platform, the identified attributes;
generating a list of keywords based on the identified attributes as stored, wherein a combination of keywords in the list of keywords is associated with a first computing device or a first software application of those disposed within the managed network;
searching for the combination of keywords in one or more files from the managed network that are associated with additional computing devices or additional software applications of those disposed within the managed network, wherein the combination of keywords comprises a first keyword being within a threshold number of characters from a second keyword in the one or more files;
determining that the combination of keywords is included in a file associated with a second computing device or a second software application of those disposed within the managed network;
defining an operational mapping between: (i) the first computing device or the first software application and (ii) the second computing device or the second software application;
increasing a confidence value of the operational mapping based on the combination of keywords being included in the file associated with the second computing device or the second software application, wherein the confidence value indicates an expected accuracy of the operational mapping; and
storing, in the CMDB, a representation of the operational mapping based on the confidence value.

9. The method of claim 8 , comprising:
determining, by the computational instance, that the confidence value of the operational mapping is above a threshold confidence value, wherein storing the representation of the operational mapping comprises storing the representation of the operational mapping based on the confidence value of the operational mapping being above the threshold confidence value.

10. The method of claim 8 , comprising:
determining, by the computational instance, that the confidence value of the operational mapping is below a threshold confidence value; and
prompting a user of the managed network to approve the operational mapping based on the determined confidence value of the operational mapping being below the threshold confidence value.

11. The method of claim 9 , wherein determining the confidence value of the operational mapping is based on an occurrence frequency of the combination of keywords in the one or more files from the managed network.

12. The method of claim 8 , wherein performing the discovery process that identifies the attributes of the computing devices and the software applications disposed within the managed network comprises causing a proxy server disposed within the managed network to identify the attributes of the computing devices and the software applications disposed within the managed network.

13. The method of claim 8 , wherein searching for the combination of keywords in the one or more files from the managed network comprises including text files and excluding binary files from the search.

14. The method of claim 8 , wherein the identified attributes for each computing device comprises an IP address, a port number, an application identifier, or a device identifier, or any combination thereof.

15. An article of manufacture including a non-transitory computer-readable medium, having stored thereon program instructions that, upon execution by a computing system, cause the computing system to perform operations

Assignees

• Servicenow Inc

Inventors

• Garty Asaf
• Bar Oz Tom
• Bitterfeld Robert
• Solomon Bary
• Badyan Daniel

Classifications

• H04L41/12

  Discovery or management of network topologies · CPC title

• H04L41/20 Primary

  Network management software packages · CPC title

• H04L67/56 Primary

  Provisioning of proxy services (store-and-forward switching systems in data switching networks H04L12/54) · CPC title

• H04L67/51

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

• G06F16/148

  File search processing · CPC title