Cloud discovery
Quick answer
Discover cloud resources, map them to CI classes and keep costs and tags aligned.
Key takeaways
- Cloud discovery uses provider APIs, not network probes
- Scope regions and services deliberately
- Tags carry ownership and cost context into the CMDB
- Untagged resources are a governance problem, not a discovery bug
How it differs
Cloud discovery calls provider APIs rather than probing IP ranges. You register a service account per account or subscription, pick the regions and services, and the platform creates logical datacenter, virtual machine and storage CIs.
Scheduling and scope
Cloud estates change constantly, so schedule discovery more frequently than on premise scans but scope it. Discovering every region when you use three is a common and expensive mistake.
Tags matter
Cloud CIs carry tags that carry your business context.
- Map owner, environment and cost centre tags into CI fields
- Use tags to drive service mapping and to attribute cost
- Enforce tagging at provisioning, the CMDB cannot invent missing context
- Report on untagged resources, that list is usually the real cleanup backlog
Want to learn this properly?
Our live, instructor-led ServiceNow Training covers this hands-on, with real projects and a certification path.
Check your understanding
What replaces IP range scanning in cloud discovery?
- A. SNMP walks
- B. Provider API calls
- C. Agent polling
- D. DNS lookups
Show answer
B. Provider API calls
Cloud resources are enumerated through the provider APIs.
Which data carries business ownership into cloud CIs?
- A. Instance ID
- B. Tags
- C. Region
- D. Image name
Show answer
B. Tags
Tags are where owner, environment and cost centre live.