Partial discovery of cloud-based resources

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11288250-B2
Application number	US-201816059813-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 9, 2018
Priority date	Aug 9, 2018
Publication date	Mar 29, 2022
Grant date	Mar 29, 2022

Abstract

A computing system may include a database disposed within a remote network management platform that manages a managed network, and server device(s) associated with the platform and configured to: transmit, to a third-party computing system, a request for general information identifying computing resources of the third-party computing system assigned to the managed network; receive, from the third-party computing system, a response indicating resource names and types of the resources that were identified; based on the response, determine that a first resource is of a first type, and responsively store, in the database, a first representation that has just data fields containing the general information from the response that identifies the first resource; and based on the response, determine that a second resource is of a second type, and responsively store, in the database, a second representation that has data fields arranged to contain specific information about the second resource.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computing system comprising:
a database device disposed within a remote network management platform configured to manage a managed network, wherein the database device comprises a configuration management database (CMDB) disposed within a computational instance of the remote network management platform, and wherein the CMDB contains information about a plurality of configuration items associated with the managed network; and
one or more server devices, associated with the remote network management platform, and configured to:
transmit, to a third-party computing system, a request for general information identifying each computing resource of a plurality of computing resources of the third-party computing system that is assigned to the managed network;
receive, from the third-party computing system, a response to the request that includes the general information, wherein the general information included in the response indicates at least respective resource names and respective resource types of the identified computing resources;
in response to receiving the response to the request that includes the general information:
determine that a first computing resource of the identified computing resources has a first resource type based on the general information;
store, in the database device, a first representation that has just a first set of data fields containing the general information from the response that identifies the first computing resource in response to determining that the first computing resource has the first resource type, wherein the first representation is stored as a discovered configuration item in the CMDB;
determine that a second computing resource of the identified computing resources has a second resource type based on the general information;
determine that the one or more server devices are configured to transmit a second request for specific information about the second computing resource to the second computing resource of the third-party computing system based on the second resource type, wherein the specific information comprises one or more data fields not present within the general information;
store, in the database device, a second representation that has a second set of data fields containing the general information about the second computing resource from the response in response to determining that the one or more server devices are configured to transmit the second request, wherein the second set of data fields comprises one or more data fields configured to contain the specific information about the second computing resource, and wherein the second representation is stored as an additional discovered configuration item in the CMDB;
transmit, to the second computing resource of the third-party computing system, the second request for the specific information associated with the second computing resource after storing the second representation;
receive, from the second computing resource of the third-party computing system, a second response to the second request that includes the specific information about the second computing resource; and
update, in the database device, the second representation to store the specific information from the second response in the one or more data fields of the second set of data fields.

2. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the identified computing resources comprise one or more of: one or more virtual machines, one or more services, one or more applications, one or more load balancers, one or more third-party servers, or one or more third-party databases, and wherein the identified computing resources were allocated to the managed network by the third- party computing system.

3. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the general information included in the response also indicates one or more of the following for the identified computing resources: (i) resource identifiers, (ii) resource locations, and (iii) resource versions.

4. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more server devices are configured to:
make a first determination that the one or more server devices are not yet configured to transmit additional requests for specific information about the identified computing resources of the first resource type, wherein storing the first representation that has just the first set of data fields is responsive to making the first determination.

5. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more server devices are configured to transmit the second request after storing the second representation in the database device.

6. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more server devices are configured to:
transmit, to the third-party computing system, a third request for the general information of the identified computing resources of the third-party computing system that are assigned to the managed network;
receive, from the third-party computing system, a third response to the third request; and
determine that the third response includes an update to the general information that identifies the first computing resource, and responsively modify one or more data fields of the first set of data fields in the first representation to contain the update to the general information that identifies the first computing resource.

7. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more server devices are configured to:
transmit, to the third-party computing system, a third request for the general information of the identified computing resources of the third-party computing system that are assigned to the managed network;
receive, from the third-party computing system, a third response to the third request; and
determine that the third response includes an update to the general information that identifies the second computing resource, and responsively modify respective data fields of the second set of data fields in the second representation to contain the update to the general information that identifies the second computing resource.

8. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more server devices are configured to:
transmit, to the third-party computing system, a third request for the general information of the identified computing resources of the third-party computing system that are assigned to the managed network;
receive, from the third-party computing system, a third response to the third request; and
determine that the general information included in the third response identifies a new computing resource that was not identified in the response, and responsively store, in the database device, a new representation of the new computing resource.

9. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the general information included in the response also indicates associations between at least two of the identified computing resources, and wherein the one or more server devices are configured to:
store, in the database device, representations of the associations indicated in the response.

10. The computing system of claim 9 , wherein the one or more server devices are configured to:
generate a definition of a graph that represents (i) one or more of the identified computing resources in the response as respective nodes and (ii) one or more of the associations as respective links; and
store the definition of the graph in the database device.

11. The computing system of claim 10 , wherein the one or more server devices are configured to:
provide, to a client device associated with the managed network, a representation of a graphical user interface that displays the graph in accordance with the stored definition.

12. The

Assignees

• Servicenow Inc

Inventors

• Tal Hail
• Rimar Yuval
• Garty Asaf

Classifications

• G06F16/23 Primary

  Updating · CPC title

• G06F9/5077 Primary

  Logical partitioning of resources; Management or configuration of virtualized resources (specific details on emulation or internal functioning of virtual machines G06F9/455) · CPC title

• G06F9/5072

  Grid computing · CPC title

• G06F16/9038

  Presentation of query results · CPC title

• G06F16/9024

  Graphs; Linked lists (G06F16/9027 takes precedence) · CPC title