BMC Discovery scan use case
This use case describes the end-to-end flow of the tasks that you must perform to view the results of your first scan with BMC Discovery.
Scenario
Consider a scenario where, as a new administrator or a user with appropriate privileges, you are yet unfamiliar with the intricacies of detecting and scanning all the resources in your IT environment. You may also be unaware of the full potential of using The Pattern Language (TPL) to enhance your search and scan. However, you want to get started with using BMC Discovery and observing tangible, initial results of discovering your IT resources.
Benefits
Performing your first end-to-end scan of the IT environment using BMC Discovery enables you to:
- Acquaint yourself with the types of credentials that you can store in the BMC Discovery Outpost (if you prefer to download and use it) and how the credentials are secured in the vault
- Understand the types of scans available, how they can be scheduled, and their comparative benefits specific to your organization
- Study the results of the first scan and decide the level of detail that you actually need to fulfill audit compliance
Workflow
The following table describes the tasks that you must perform in the specified sequence and the reference to the procedure:
| Task | Action | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Log into the BMC Discovery appliance for the first time, and update your system password and command-line user password. You can skip this task if you are already logged into the BMC Discovery appliance. | Logging in to the system |
| 2 | Secure your BMC Discovery appliance by performing the initial configuration updates. You can skip this task if you have already implemented the instructions in the reference topic. | First steps in securing BMC Discovery |
| 3 | Perform your first snapshot discovery run without credentials and see the potential hosts that can be discovered. | Performing an initial discovery run |
| 4 | Decide if you need to install one or more Windows proxies or BMC Discovery Outposts to explore the target hosts. You can skip this task if you have already installed Windows proxies or installed BMC Discovery Outpost and registered it. | |
| 5 | Examine the results of your first scan and look for potential hosts in the range that was scanned. | Examining scan results |
| 6 | If you prefer adding credentials, perform a rescan with credentials. | Rescanning with credentials |
| 7 | (Optional) If you have cloud resources, perform a cloud discovery scan. | Performing a cloud discovery run |
| 8 | Refine your scan by excluding a specific range of IP addresses from being scanned. | Excluding ranges from discovery |
| 9 | Schedule your scans by specifying the frequency, start, and end times of the scan. | Scheduling discovery |
| 10 | Enable other users of the system by setting their passwords. | Enabling other users |
For information on improving your scan results, see the following video (02:04):
Where to go from here
The following topics contain information about more advanced configuration options:
- To use start anywhere application modeling, a quick and easy approach to application modeling, which enables you to choose any entry points into an application, and begin modeling from there.
- To avoid exposing credentials in the information about discovered processes (for example, the command used to launch the process), learn how to mask sensitive data.
- To examine or modify discovery commands, follow the guidelines provided in Managing the discovery platform scripts.
- Some commands return more information when they are launched with the superuser credentials. You can authorize log-on with the privileged credentials for such commands by adding privileged execution to the related discovery script.
- To improve discovery you can monitor the success rate of the credentials, troubleshoot access issues, and see discovery conditions for information about potential access issues.
- To simulate the discovery of a system that is unreachable for the BMC Discovery machine, you can use manual scanning using the discovery scripts. For Windows systems, you can use the Standalone Windows scanning tool.
- To enrich the discovered data with the information available in external databases, see Discovering content from databases.
- To enable centralized management and decentralized discovery in firewalled environments and restricted networks, use Consolidation.
- To allow BMC Discovery connect with the required level of access to the discovered systems in your network, see Configuring credentials.
- To learn about the ports and protocols BMC Discovery uses to scan your IT environment, see Network ports used for discovery communications.
- To explore how to create clusters from any BMC Discovery machine, see Creating a cluster. You can then discover clusters in your environment, or troubleshoot cluster issues.
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