Introduction to IT Discovery

Enterprises operate with extensive IT components spread across departments and locations, a phenomenon known as “IT sprawl,” which refers to the uncontrolled growth of IT infrastructure and assets.

Companies need a practical IT discovery framework to tackle shadow IT, leading to unauthorized and unmonitored assets. The BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) trend adds another layer of complexity, as personal devices are not subject to the same security and management protocols as company devices. They often remain undiscovered and unmanaged. Remote working further stretches the IT boundaries, bringing in unknown network vulnerabilities that go undetected.

Along with these, the hybrid cloud architecture makes it even harder to manage the IT infrastructure, demanding higher expertise for seamless integration and implementation. These challenges require a robust IT discovery and management solution that discovers IT assets and manages and protects them from risks.

Today, we will discuss IT discovery in detail. 

What is IT Discovery?

IT discovery is identifying and cataloging the organization's IT assets. The process systematically gathers information about the IT assets like device name and type, network address, device configurations, and firmware versions. It maps the interdependencies between hardware and software to create.

Additionally, it gathers information on device status, capacity, and performance to provide a comprehensive view of the IT environment.

What is the Purpose of IT Discovery?

IT discovery aims to gain an insight into each component present in an IT network (hardware, software, cloud resources, services, etc.), their relation with each other, and their interdependencies.

This complete picture fuels further analysis of the complete IT network so that: 

• Security risks are taken care of
• Informed and strategic decisions about upgrades, migrations, etc. are made
• Any compliance requirement failure is noticed and handled
• Troubleshooting IT problems becomes easier
• The usual IT bottlenecks are identified
• An exceptional user experience is provided.

IT discovery is not just a process but a strategic tool that lays the foundation for proactive IT management. It provides a comprehensive view of the IT components, their interdependencies, and how they work together. This understanding empowers you to optimize, secure, and improve the IT landscape, thereby enhancing the value of your IT infrastructure.

IT Discovery Vs. IT Monitoring 

IT discovery aims to map out all the components in the IT ecosystem, their relation, and their interdependencies. IT monitoring is all about ensuring their health and performance. 

In IT discovery, highly specialized IT tools scan the IT landscape using techniques such as network sweep to locate and catalog all the IT components in the tech stack. 

On the other hand, in IT monitoring, different tools continuously monitor the health and performance of all the components mapped in the IT discovery phase. This warns about any emerging issue in the IT network before it causes outages or breaks down the entire IT network. 

IT Discovery vs Service Mapping

Although IT discovery and service mapping aim to map IT components in a given IT environment, they differ in their approach. 

Where IT discovery walks the path of a bottom-up approach in the tech stack and maps out all the IT components, their relation, and interdependencies, service mapping takes a top-down approach. It builds upon the information gathered by IT discovery. It focuses on understanding how those components work together to deliver a specific business service. 

• IT discovery – It scans a defined range (like IP addresses) and identifies all discoverable devices such as servers, desktops, printers, software such as applications and databases, and connections within that scope.
• Service mapping – It starts with a specific business service and asks, "What CIs are involved?" and "How do they interact?

How does IT discovery work? 

To identify and catalog each component in the IT ecosystem, IT discovery starts with techniques such as network sweep, which involves a thorough scan. Let’s break down the steps involved and map them out:

Scan the stack

Firstly, the network is scanned using different IT tools and techniques. These tools scan not only the on-premise data but also the cloud environment. Some of the scanning techniques used are:

• Network sweeps – This identifies devices
• Agent deployment – This gathers detailed configuration info
• IT-tool querying – This collects asset data

Create an inventory

After the scan, several IT discovery tools compile the gathered information and turn it into an IT inventory. This IT inventory includes 

• Hardware such as servers, desktops, and printers
• Software such as applications and, databases and
• Cloud infrastructure.

These IT assets are usually documented in this inventory with details such as type, location, configuration, version, etc. 

Map dependencies

Next, all the documented IT components are checked for their relation with each other. Here, different IT tools map dependencies using a combination of techniques such as: 

• Agent data analysis
• Network traffic monitoring
• Leveraging existing CMDB data.

These techniques identify how components interact and depend on each other to ensure proper IT functioning. The output of these techniques is then used to map the dependencies. The map could either be a simple list or a more complex diagram. It depends on the specific tool and technique used.

Audit continuously

IT discovery is a never-ending process that keeps scanning and mapping the IT environment from time to time due to the continuously evolving IT environment. An organization keeps adding new devices, updating software, and upgrading technology. These changes must be mapped in a timely manner to keep the IT inventory up to date. 

Analyze and make decisions

IT discovery aims to map out all the components of an IT ecosystem to make an informed decision. Using the compiled data (IT inventory and dependency maps), an organization can:

• Identify areas that require improvement
• Look for security issues
• Proactively pinpoint and address potential problems before they expand and create downtime.

Read our guide to enterprise IT Management here

Approaches to IT Discovery

Several approaches exist to discover active IT devices and gather information about their status and configuration. Here are some key approaches:

1. ARP commands

This is the most basic approach to IT discovery, which uses IP addresses for their corresponding Ethernet or Token Ring physical address. It is a straightforward process and does not require any additional software.

The ARP contains tables storing these mapping, which can be queried to identify the active devices on the network. ARP works for IPv4 devices. However, for IPv6 devices. ARP uses the Neighbor Discovery protocol. 

2. Common Information Model

This open standard approach offers a consistent definition of management information for systems, applications, networks, and services. It provides a modeling schema, enabling the representation of software and hardware and their configuration.

It allows vendor-specific extensions and helps describe managed objects in the network. While it is a complex process requiring expertise, CIM offers a unified framework to describe IT assets and promote interoperability.

3. Windows Management Infrastructure

This approach is an evolution of Microsoft’s Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) and is specific to Windows environments. It is based on CIM and consolidates the management of devices and applications on a Windows-based network.

It provides a framework, including APIs and tools, for managing Windows systems and allows administrators to gather information about the configuration and status of Windows-based applications.

4. Cloud discovery

This approach focuses on identifying cloud-based assets. It involves using APIs to enumerate cloud instances and collect information about their configuration. Cloud discovery typically uses AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud to collect data on cloud instances, storage, and networking configurations.

It provides comprehensive visibility of cloud resources, helps ensure that cloud assets are properly managed and secured, and identifies unused/underutilized resources for cost optimization.

IT Discovery and AIOps 

IT discovery and AIOps bring enhanced operational efficiency and comprehensive asset management. IT discovery identifies and catalogs IT assets, ensuring up-to-date inventory. AIOps use AI and ML to analyze the data, automate responses, and predict issues. Combining the two enables informed decision-making, better adaptability, and improved security.

Let’s see the advantages of IT discovery and AIOps for enterprises:

1. Speedy data processing

Traditional IT operations often struggle to process the high volume of data generated by the modern IT environment. Integrating IT discovery and AIOPs enables the speedy processing of vast data in real time. It extracts valuable insights from files, performance metrics, and other sources quickly, identifies patterns impossible to detect manually, and helps resolve issues faster. It also enables efficient utilization of resources by providing real-time information on IT assets.

For example, integrating AIOPs with IT discovery helps process large volumes in real time and quickly identify shifts in traffic patterns, app performance, and server load. This helps IT teams quickly identify the load and allocate resources to handle the traffic, ensuring a seamless experience for users.

2. Proactive identification of issues

AIOps enhance IT discovery and help proactively identify potential problems before they escalate. Continuously monitoring and analyzing vast data from multiple IT assets, AIOPs detect anomalies and predict issues beforehand.

The AI and ML also suggest preemptive actions that help minimize downtime and impact on end-users, ensuring the availability of critical systems.

For example, AIOPs, alongside IT discovery, can detect early signs of disk failure on database servers to help replace the disk beforehand and avoid data loss.

3. Better decision-making

AIOPs and IT discovery provide data-driven insights to IT leaders, which help them make better decisions. IT discovery considers all the IT assets and their status, while AIOPs analyze the data to generate actionable insights. This helps access the current state of IT assets, predict the impact of planned upgrades, and reduce risk to ensure smooth implementation. 

For instance, AI might indicate the underutilization of high-cost tools and can suggest reallocation of resources.

4. Scalability and adaptability

Modern IT environments must be dynamic and scale rapidly to adapt to fast changes. IT discovery aligned with AIOPs allows organizations to manage growing IT needs efficiently. AIOPs adjust to new devices, configurations, and networks automatically as the organization expands.

5. Better incident response

Incident response is critical to IT operations, and AIOPs enable quick identification of incidents and their root causes, significantly improving the IT environment functions. The AIOPs analyze the data from servers, devices, and applications to pinpoint issues that reduce detection time and impact business. It also suggests ways to resolve the issues based on past incidents and data.

In the event of an incident, AIOPs swiftly identify the affected component and automatically initiate predefined response actions like isolating the affected component or rerouting traffic.

6. Better observability

Observability is the ability to understand the state of a system based on the data it generates. IT discovery sets the foundation for observability by cataloging all the IT assets and ensuring consistent monitoring. AIOPs enhance observability using advanced analytics and visualizations, offering the IT team deeper insight into the health of various systems.

How Rezolve.ai Improves Operational Efficiency With AIOps

Rezolve.ai is a GenAI-powered AITSM solution that offers features to optimize IT performance. It exemplifies the AIOPs' capabilities to enhance operational efficiency. 
AIOPs depend on agile knowledge management, and Rezolve.ai leverages GenAI to monitor and analyze data to maintain an up-to-date knowledge base. It integrates AI-driven IT service desk solutions to provide personalized support through the conversational chatbot, which uses the knowledge base to offer quick resolution to employees.

Rezolve.ai also boasts of automation capabilities, which auto-resolve 65% of queries. It also offers desktop automation to streamline routine tasks and seamless integration with MS Teams. The advanced analytics offered by Rezolve.ai ensure in-depth insights into IT performance, enabling proactive mitigation of risks and issue resolution.

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FAQs 

What are the benefits of IT asset discovery?

IT asset discovery provides enhanced asset visibility, asset tracking for inventory management, identifying unused and underutilized assets to help reduce costs, ensuring compliance with standards, and proactive maintenance.

What is the difference between asset management and asset discovery?

Asset discovery is identifying and cataloging all IT assets in the organization network. Whereas asset management goes beyond discovery and tracks, manages, and optimizes assets throughout their lifecycle.

What is discovery in IT infrastructure?

Discovery in IT infrastructure refers to the automated process of identifying and cataloging all IT components within an organization network, including hardware, software, virtual assets, and databases. It helps create an up-to-date inventory of IT assets and provides insights into their health.

What is the meaning of IT assets?

IT asset refers to all the components that make up the IT infrastructure of the organization. It includes physical devices like computers, laptops, routers, and printers; software like applications, OS, firewalls, and software tools; databases and virtual assets like cloud services and virtual machines.