IT Asset Discovery
Trusted runtime truth starts with authoritative discovery. Virima IT Discovery identifies assets across your hybrid estate — on-premises, cloud,and remote — and delivers the continuously refreshed, auditable record that powers your CMDB, service maps, and downstream workflows.
Featuring agentless IP-based scanning, optional agents for Windows, macOS, and Linux, and deep integrations with AWS and Azure, Virima Discovery uses 100+ probes to detect thousands of physical and virtual assets, hundreds of hardware configurations, and installed software across your environment — giving teams the authoritative data they need to plan changes and resolve incidents with confidence.
Benefits
IT Discovery for Hybrid Environments
Virima’s holistic IT asset discovery software helps you find your assets across data centers, edge, and cloud environments. The extendable probes automatically discover thousands of physical and virtual computer, network, and storage assets.
Easy-to-Deploy IT Discovery Software
Virima Discovery includes everything you need to run and schedule scans of your IT environments. It allows you to easily distribute the optional agent to network connected desktops and servers.
Build an Authoritative CMDB, Not Just an Inventory
Accurate configuration details are critical when planning changes, responding to incidents, or conducting an audit. Discovery-sourced data — not manual imports — is the only way to keep your CMDB authoritative and your teams moving with confidence.
How Virima IT Discovery works
Virima IT Discovery is the data engine behind your authoritative CMDB. It reconciles multi-source, multi-protocol scanning into a governed operational record — so everything downstream, from your service maps to your ITSM workflows, starts from discovery-verified data.
Agentless: Virima Discovery is an agentless set-and-forget IT asset discovery tool that identifies all network connected devices and performs deep analysis of hardware and software configurations. You can schedule Virima Discovery to continually rescan the IT estate in order to capture new assets and check existing assets for configuration changes.
Windows and Linux agents: Further, Virima Discovery also offers agents for assets running desktop and server versions of Windows and Linux, which do not routinely connect to the network, require persistent configuration monitoring, or for when agentless remoting is not allowed.
Hybrid IT environments: Consequently, with both agentless and agent-based discovery, it provides flexible options for hybrid environments, including on premise, cloud and work from anywhere assets.
Features
Virima’s IT asset discovery software can tell you things about your IT assets that you never knew with astonishing accuracy. It also includes Virima CMDB and ViVID Service Mapping resulting in a complete, accurate and visual CMDB.
This comes with many great features and benefits including:
Secure Discovery
- The Virima platform is purpose-built on AWS for multi-tenancy with full data segregation between tenants
- RACI model for role-based access
- Virima Discovery App runs on servers you own and control
- Asset credentials are encrypted on the Discovery App and never sent to the cloud
- Discovery data is encrypted and securely transmitted to the AWS cloud
- Virima is independently certified for AICPA SOC 2 Type 2 audited controls
Agentless IT Discovery Tool
- Download the Virima Discovery App to a Windows server with access to the IP network you wish to scan
- Add credentials for the types of assets you want to. It is easy to install and configure, no agents required to deploy
- IP-based IT discovery tool that lets you select subnets and ranges to scan
- Hundreds of out-of-the-box, extendable IT asset discovery probes and sensors
- Custom probe generator
- Automated with set-and-forget scheduling
- Intelligent design that won’t flood the network with “scan storms” or affect device performance
- Scan details show the successes, failures, and reasons for failure
Discovery Agent for Windows, Mac and Linux
- Alternative to Virima agentless discovery allowing for more frequent monitoring of network-connected PCs and servers while also alleviating many security and credentialing concerns
- Easy to deploy directly from the Virima Discovery App or via software distribution toolk like Microsoft SCCM
- Virima’s Work from Anywhere “WFA” solution keeps tabs on remote PC’s daily configuration changes and software usage over the Internet
- Track the actual software usage for software metering reports to reclaim underutilized licenses
Identify and Prioritize Vulnerabilities
- NIST National Vulnerability Database (NVD) integration included at no additional charge
- Discovery data is used to perform automatic check for known CPEs and CVEs
- ViVID Service Mapping makes prioritizing remediation efforts based on assets criticality to the business fast and easy
- Add an extra layer of protection to existing vulnerability management tools
- Generate vulnerability reports to share with relevant stakeholders and auditors
Broad Coverage
- Data center infrastructure (i.e., servers, network, storage, load balancers)
- Virtual assets (i.e., applications, virtual machines, hypervisors, containers, websites)
- Edge devices (such as desktops, printers, IoT, and others)
- Cloud resources, such as AWS EC2s and VPCs, and Azure Virtual Machines and App Gateways, and much more)
Device-specific Hardware Details
- Model and serial numbers
- CPU, RAM, HD
- Network adapters
- Peripherals
- BIOS, OS version
- Relationships
- Hostnames
Hundreds of OS attributes
- OS version
- Of-the-shelf software
- Custom applications
- Patches
- Certificates
- Listeners, processes, and services
Seamless Integrations
Virima IT Discovery integrates with many common IT management tools and platforms including:
- Virima CMDB and ViVID Service Mapping (included with Virima Discovery)
- Virima ITAM and ITSM
- Third-party ITSM and ITOM solutions (i.e ServiceNow, Jira Service Management, HaloITSM, Ivanti/Cherwell)
- AWS and Azure
- Hypervisors, network, and storage (i.e. VCenter, Hyper-V, Cisco, EMC)
- Event and Alert Management (i.e. Solarwinds, Logic Monitor)
- NIST National Vulnerability Database (NVD)
- Don’t see an integration you need? Contact us because we would love to add it!
IT Discovery Best Practices
1. Find the best IT discovery tool to meet your needs. Ideally one tool will do the job for all your asset discovery needs but don’t let a small gap in coverage derail your overall ambitions. The selection process needs to include how much detail you expect to collect about each hardware and software asset but also consider how this information will be collected. Do you have the necessary permissions for agentless discovery? How’s your appetite for deploying agents? If your goal is to truly capture everything a blended approach is probably required and will likely involve additional collection through APIs. If the budget allows, be sure to include discovery of asset relationships and application dependency mapping in your criteria. The costs for automating mapping capabilities has come down significantly in the past few years and the benefits are significant. Identifying your needs up front will make the selection process easier and the right IT discovery tool will save you time and costs almost immediately.
2. Keep it simple in the beginning by focusing on network environments and assets that are generally easiest to discover and offer the biggest return in value by way of useful information. Those are usually physical and virtual Windows servers and desktops on the corporate network. This will give you an immediate baseline of what’s likely the biggest piece of hardware and software in the IT estate. With Windows out of the way, focus on other server operating systems like Linux and Unix, hypervisors, network infrastructure, storage, peripherals and other edge components. Then make a plan to hit remote sites and cloud environments. Lastly you might go after the work from home computers. For most that’s going to be the biggest challenge and expect to deploy some type of agent to do it. Your IT asset discovery processes will mature over time but don’t try to do it all alone. Work with stakeholders across the organization to come up with a strategy for discovering every IT asset. Remind them it’s in their best interest because they too will benefit from the results.
3. To get the best results out of your IT discovery tool, make sure you run frequent and time-varied scans. Since you would never choose an IT asset discovery that could potentially disrupt your daily operations during a scan, it’s wise to vary your schedule scans to cast the widest net, not just during low demand or scheduled downtimes. For the most effective use of the discovered data, make sure the discovery tool can be tightly integrated with other systems such as IT Asset Management (ITAM), IT Service Management (ITSM), IT Operations Management (ITOM), ITSec tools and financial and ERP platforms.
4. Address Exceptions. Now that the majority of assets have been successfully discovered and moved to the CMDB it’s time to focus on the few remaining hold-outs. These discovery exceptions could be due to inadequate credentials, a lack of device level permissions or installed toolsets, or maybe they have been too busy to respond when scanned. If you’re using advanced software like Virima Discovery, there should be plenty of information available to help you determine the issue and decide on the best course of action. Generally this is where you’ll need to leverage some institutional knowledge to get the discovery process across the finish line.
Service mapping improves visibility, business continuity, and compliance—but only if it’s implemented with the right foundation. Follow these best practices to get reliable maps your teams actually use.
Find the right IT discovery tool for your needs
The best IT discovery tools balance coverage, accuracy, and operational effort. Don’t let a small gap in visibility derail you from getting a trusted view of your IT estate.
When evaluating tools, confirm:
- What you need to discover: hardware, OS, installed software, configuration details
- How data is collected: agentless, agent-based, and/or API-based discovery
- Whether you have the right permissions/credentials for agentless discovery
- When and where you’ll need agents (for remote, off-network, or work-from-home devices)
- Asset relationship discovery
- Application dependency mapping
Start simple, then expand coverage
Begin with the environments that are easiest to discover and provide the fastest value. Typically, on-network Windows servers and desktops. This creates a baseline for your IT estate.
Then expand to:
- Linux/Unix servers and other operating systems
- Hypervisors and virtualization platforms
- Network infrastructure (switches, routers, firewalls)
- Storage, peripherals, and edge components
- Remote sites and cloud environments
- Work-from-home endpoints (often the hardest—agents may be required)
With Virima Discovery, teams can build coverage in phases while keeping asset data consistent and usable as the environment grows.
Scan often and vary the timing
For best results, run frequent and time-varied scans. Varying the schedules can help you discover devices only appear at certain times—without disrupting operations.
Best practices include:
- Run scans on a recurring cadence (not one-time sweeps)
- Vary scan windows to improve coverage (not only during low-usage periods)
- Use discovery data to support workflows—don’t let it sit idle
- IT Asset Management (ITAM)
- IT Service Management (ITSM)
- IT Operations Management (ITOM)
- Security tools
- Finance/ERP systems
Address exceptions and close the gaps
Once most assets are discovered and added to the CMDB, focus on the remaining holdouts. Common reasons for discovery exceptions include:
- Insufficient credentials or expired access
- Missing device permissions
- Required tools/services not installed or reachable
- Systems too busy or unavailable during scan windows
With Virima Discovery, exception details help teams diagnose issues faster—often paired with institutional knowledge to finish coverage and keep discovery dependable over time
Why Virima?
Trusted runtime truth starts here. Every ITSM workflow and IT decision depends on knowing what actually exists, how it’s connected, what changed, and what could break. Virima IT Discovery delivers that authoritative record — through multi-source, multi-protocol scanning across your hybrid estate.
Beyond inventory, Virima Discovery resolves relationships and dependencies, flags known vulnerabilities through NIST NVD integration, and supports instant rescans of assets linked to active services — so your teams always work from current, discovery-verified data instead of stale snapshots. When integrated with ViVID™ Service Maps and your ITSM platform, that operational context becomes the heads-up display your teams need to change faster and recover faster.
Full discovery coverage extends to cloud. Seamless AWS and Azure integrations ensure cloud assets are part of your authoritative record — no blind spots, no lock-in.
Challenges & Solutions
01. What is IT discovery?
In the context of agentic IT, IT discovery is the data engine behind trusted runtime truth — the authoritative record that AI agents and automation workflows rely on to understand impact and act safely.
02.What kind of IT assets does an IT discovery tool deal with?
A powerful IT discovery tool like Virima IT Discovery will help you get a complete visibility into your most valuable assets, including hardware, software, data center, edge, cloud, remote and work-from-home assets. Other asset types you can expect to get from an IT discovery tool include virtual machines, containers, websites and data storage.
03. How does IT discovery fit into IT asset management?
IT discovery and IT asset management go hand in hand. A proper IT discovery tool helps you automatically discover all your IT assets across your IT environment, including license and configuration details.
04. Does IT discovery include virtual machine and hypervisor discovery?
Yes. With an intuitive IT discovery tool like Virima, you can identify and classify complete information about virtual machines and the hypervisors that manage them, such as VMWare VCenter and Microsoft Hyper-V. Virima IT Discovery will tell you things like where it resides (physical server, AWS EC2 instance, Azure Virtual Machine), hardware configurations, operating system details, installed software and relationships to other VM’s and infrastructure components. It will also tell you what applications and services the virtual machine supports.
05. How does IT discovery help your business?
IT asset discovery makes it simple for you to know your assets inside out, what you have or don’t have, what you need, and what you need to dispose of. When done right, IT asset discovery helps you improve security and avoid penalties by keeping you aware of unlicensed software usage. IT discovery helps you understand your network architecture and identify vulnerabilities, keeps you aware of license status for your assets, simplifies IT asset tracking, and helps you make efficient and responsible financial decisions when it comes to IT assets.
06. How do you choose an IT discovery tool compatible with your infrastructure?
Selecting an appropriate IT discovery tool that’s compatible with your existing infrastructure is crucial. While choosing an IT discovery tool, make sure it has the ability to integrate seamlessly with your existing infrastructure. For instance, Virima IT Discovery seamlessly integrates with AWS and Azure, hypervisors, network and storage APIs, Event and Alert Management,
third-party ITSM and ITOM solutions, and Virima CMDB, ITAM, and ITSM.
07. How can you optimize IT costs with IT discovery?
For IT cost optimization, you need to reduce expenses and spend on the right things. To optimize costs related to IT, you first need visibility into your IT assets which can only be possible through IT discovery. An IT discovery tool like Virima will help you gain transparency and complete view into your assets. Not just that, it keeps you vigilant by constantly monitoring your IT environment so that the waste doesn’t build up again. IT discovery also automates manual, error-prone tasks to reduce disruptions.
08. How does Virima IT Discovery complement Virima CMDB?
Virima IT Discovery is the source engine for your CMDB — delivering discovery-verified data that powers your configuration records, your ViVID™ service maps, and every downstream team that needs to know what exists, how it connects, and what could break.
09. Why would I install the Discovery Agent instead of using the Discovery App agentless discovery?
While agentless discovery provides the broadest range of device support it can only record a device’s config at the time of scan. Having a discovery agent locally installed on desktop and laptops allows for full-time monitoring of config changes and software usage, even when the device goes off network. The discovery agent can also be configured to look for additional attributes that might not be available with agentless scanning. Loading the agent locally also eliminates the need for credentials and remote access to the device.
10. How is the Discovery agent installed?
The Discovery agent can be seamlessly pushed via the Discovery App to target machines or installed as a Windows MSI and pushed via software management tools such as SCCM. Once installed agent versions are automatically kept up to date.
11. I have ServiceNowTM and want a less expensive/better alternative to ServiceNow discovery and service mapping. Will your discovery work?
Absolutely! With our API integration for ServiceNow you can have bi-directional synchronization between Virima Discovery and the ServiceNow CMDB. Virima’s ViVID Service Maps are viewable within either system.
Use Cases
How Discovery and Service Mapping Create Value for IT
Virima can tell you more things about more IT assets with greater accuracy than ever imagined and present the info in a variety of powerful, dynamic visualizations and reports.
Build a CMDB
Do you feel like CMDB (configuration management database) is a puzzle you can’t solve because there’s no automatic way to build and maintain it?
IT Asset Discovery
Whether your goal is to simply build and maintain a complete inventory of IT hardware, software and cloud assets or implement a full ITAM or ITSM program, Virima has you covered.
Move faster. Act safely.
multi-source discovery that leaves no asset behind.