AWS Application

Discovery Service
User Guide
 AWS Application Discovery Service User Guide

AWS Application Discovery Service: User Guide

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 AWS Application Discovery Service User Guide

Table of Contents
What Is AWS Application Discovery Service? .......................................................................................... 1
Components .............................................................................................................................. 2
Arsenal ............................................................................................................................. 2
Agentless Discovery Components ......................................................................................... 2
AWS Application Discovery Agent ......................................................................................... 6
Processing and Database Components .................................................................................. 7
Prerequisites .............................................................................................................................. 8
Related Services and Partner Tools ............................................................................................... 8
Accessing Application Discovery Service ........................................................................................ 8
Limitations ................................................................................................................................ 9
Setting Up ....................................................................................................................................... 10
Request Access ......................................................................................................................... 10
Create and Configure an IAM User .............................................................................................. 10
Attach Required IAM User Policies ...................................................................................... 11
Create a Key Pair ............................................................................................................. 14
Set Up Agentless Discovery ....................................................................................................... 14
Deploying the AWS Agentless Discovery Connector Virtual Appliance ...................................... 14
Configuring the AWS Agentless Discovery Connector ............................................................ 15
Set Up Discovery Agents ........................................................................................................... 15
Before You Begin ............................................................................................................. 15
Installing the AWS Application Discovery Agent .................................................................... 16
Console tutorial ............................................................................................................................... 19
Step 1: Working with the Dashboard .......................................................................................... 19
Step 2: Working with the Data Collection Page ............................................................................ 19
Step 3: Working with the Servers Page ....................................................................................... 21
Step 4: Working with the Server Network Diagram ....................................................................... 23
Step 5: Working with the Applications Page ................................................................................ 25
Troubleshooting ............................................................................................................................... 27
General Troubleshooting Tools ................................................................................................... 27
Inspect the AWSApplication Discovery Agent Configuration ................................................... 27
Run the AWS Application Discovery Agent in Offline Mode .................................................... 27
Enable Logging for the AWS Application Discovery Agent ...................................................... 28
Troubleshooting the AWS Application Discovery Agent Data .......................................................... 29
Troubleshooting AWS Application Discovery Agent Configuration ................................................... 29
AWS Application Discovery Agent Fails to Register ................................................................ 29
Failure to Create AWS Application Discovery Agent Credentials for Windows Server ................... 30
Document History ............................................................................................................................ 31
AWS Glossary .................................................................................................................................. 32

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 AWS Application Discovery Service User Guide

What Is AWS Application Discovery

Service?

AWS Application Discovery Service helps you plan application migration projects by automatically
identifying servers, virtual machines (VMs), software, and software dependencies running in your on-
premises data centers. Application Discovery Service also collects application performance data, which
can help you assess the outcome of your migration. The data collected by Application Discovery Service
is securely retained in an AWS-hosted and managed database in the cloud. You can export the data as a
CSV or XML file into your preferred visualization tool or cloud-migration solution to plan your migration.
For more information, see AWS Application Discovery Service FAQ.

Application Discovery Service offers two modes of operation:

• Agentless discovery mode is recommended for environments that use VMware vCenter Server.
This mode doesn't require you to install an agent on each host. Agentless discovery gathers server
information regardless of the operating systems, which minimizes the time required for initial on-
premises infrastructure assessment. Agentless discovery doesn't collect information about software
and software dependencies. It also doesn't work in non-VMware environments.
• Agent-based discovery mode collects a richer set of data than agentless discovery by using Amazon
software, the AWS Application Discovery Agent, which you install on one or more hosts in your data
center. The agent captures infrastructure and application information, including an inventory of
installed software applications, system and process performance, resource utilization, and network
dependencies between workloads. The information collected by agents is secured at rest and in transit
to the Application Discovery Service database in the cloud.

We recommend that you use agent-based discovery for non-VMware environments and to collect
information about software and software dependencies. You can also run agent-based and agentless
discovery simultaneously. Use agentless discovery to quickly complete the initial infrastructure
assessment and then install agents on select hosts.

Application Discovery Service integrates with application discovery solutions from AWS Partner Network
(APN) partners. Third-party application discovery tools can query Application Discovery Service and
write to the Application Discovery Service database using a public API. You can then import the data into
either a visualization tool or cloud-migration solution.
Important
Application Discovery Service doesn't gather sensitive information. All data is handled according
to the AWS Privacy Policy. You can operate Application Discovery Service offline to inspect
collected data before it is shared with the service.

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 AWS Application Discovery Service User Guide
Components

For more information about the data that Application Discovery Service collects, see AWS Application
Discovery Service Components (p. 2).

AWS Application Discovery Service Components

AWS Application Discovery Service uses a combination of AWS software agents and cloud-based services
to identify, map, and store an inventory of the assets in your computing environment.

Contents
• Arsenal (p. 2)
• Agentless Discovery Components (p. 2)
• AWS Application Discovery Agent (p. 6)
• Processing and Database Components (p. 7)

Arsenal
Arsenal is an agent service managed and hosted by AWS that sends data from AWS Application Discovery
Agents and the AWS Agentless Discovery Connector to Application Discovery Service in the cloud. The
word arsenal is included in some URLs and IAM policies.

Agentless Discovery Components

Agentless discovery uses the AWS Agentless Discovery Connector to communicate with Arsenal. Install
the connector as a virtual machine (VM) in your VMware vCenter Server environment using an Open
Virtualization Archive (OVA) file. When you start the connector, it registers with Arsenal, and frequently
pings Arsenal for configuration information. When you send a command for the connector to start
collecting data, it connects to VMWare vCenter Server and collects information about all the VMs and
hosts managed by this specific vCenter. The collected data is sent to Arsenal using Secure Sockets
Layer (SSL) encryption. The connector is configured to automatically upgrade when new versions of the
connector become available. You can change this configuration setting at any time.

Data Collected During Agentless Discovery

Agentless discovery does not collect information about your applications. It only collects information
about your VMware vCenter Server hosts and VMs, including performance data about those hosts and
VMs. The information collected by agentless discovery is shown in the following tables. Items in bold
are only captured if VMware vCenter Server tools are installed. Agentless discovery attempts to collect
all the following data; however, in some situations, vCenter might not have the data, as noted in the
following tables.

Inventory Data about VMs in vCenter

Data Data availability

Timestamp Guaranteed

OSType If available

SystemRelease If available

MoRefID Guaranteed

(Unique vCenter Managed Object Reference ID)

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 AWS Application Discovery Service User Guide
Agentless Discovery Components

Data Data availability

instanceUuid If available

(Unique ID for a virtual machine, not for the host

system)

FolderPath Guaranteed

(VM folder path in vCenter)

Name Guaranteed

(Name of the vCenter VM or host)

Hostname If available

Hypervisor Guaranteed

Manufacturer Guaranteed

ToolsStatus If available

(VMware tools status)

HostSystem Guaranteed for VM

(MoRefId of the VM or host system)

Datacenter Guaranteed

(MoRefID of the data center where the system is

located)

Type Guaranteed

(Host or VM)

vCenterId Guaranteed

(Unique vCenter ID)

smBiosId If available

MacAddress Guaranteed

IpAddress If available

Network - List If available

(A VMware object representation of a network)

macAddress Guaranteed if the network exists

(For the network)

portGroupName If available

(For the network)

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Agentless Discovery Components

Data Data availability

portGroupId If available

(For the network)

virtualSwitchName If available

Name If available

(Network name specified by the user)

CPUType If available

(vCPU for a VM, actual model for a host)

Performance Data for VMs in vCenter

Data Guaranteed or If Available

Timestamp Guaranteed

MoRefID Guaranteed

(Managed Object Reference ID of the system

producing the metrics)

Type Guaranteed

(Host or VM)

vCenterId Guaranteed

(Unique ID of the vCenter)

smBiosId If available

PowerState Guaranteed

MemorySize If available

(Memory size of the VM/host)

MemoryReservation If available

(Reservation set for a VM)

ActiveRAM If available

(Average RAM over the polling period)

MaxActiveRam If available

(Max RAM over polling period)

NetworkCards If available

Name If available

(Name associated with the metrics collected)

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 AWS Application Discovery Service User Guide
Agentless Discovery Components

Data Guaranteed or If Available

BytesReadPerSecond If available

(Average over the polling period)

BytesWrittenPerSecond If available

(Average over the polling period)

TotalUsage If available

(Average transmitted/received over the polling

period)

MaxTotalUsage If available

(Max transmitted/received over the polling

period)

Disks If available

DeviceID If available

(Name associated with metrics collected; for a

virtual device, it is the SCSI ID)

Name If available

Capacity If available

scsi If available

(For mapping performance metrics to a virtual

disk)

BytesReadPerSecond If available

(Average over the polling period)

BytesWrittenPerSecond If available

(Average over the polling period)

ReadOpsPerSecond If available

(Average over the polling period)

WriteOpsPerSecond If available

(Average over the polling period)

Cpus If available

Name If available

(Name associated with the metrics collected)

UsagePct If available

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AWS Application Discovery Agent

Data Guaranteed or If Available

UsageMHz If available

(Average over the polling period)

MaxUsageMHz (Max over the polling period) If available

numCores If available

speedMHz If available

reservationMHz If available

(Reservation set for a VM)

AWS Application Discovery Agent

The AWS Application Discovery Agent is AWS software that you install on on-premises servers and VMs
targeted for discovery and migration. Agents run on Linux and Windows and collect server configuration
and activity information about your applications and infrastructure. You can also install the agent on
Amazon EC2 instances. When you start an agent, it registers with Arsenal and frequently pings the
service for configuration information. When you send a command that tells an agent to start collecting
data, it collects an extensive amount of data for the host or VM where it resides, including TCP and UDP
connections to other hosts or VMs, which can help you map your IT assets without having to install an
agent on every host or VM. Agents are configured to upgrade automatically when new versions become
available. You can change this configuration setting at any time.

Agents collect information in the following categories and send it to Application Discovery Service using
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption:

• User information (user name, home directory, and so on)

• Group information (name)
• List of installed packages
• List of kernel modules
• All create and stop process events
• DNS queries
• NIC information
• TCP/UDP process listening ports
• TCPV4/V6 connections
• Operating system information
• System performance
• Process performance

After you install agents, you manage them using the Application Discovery Service API. The API includes
actions to start and stop agents. You can also retrieve information about agents, including the host name
where agents reside, their health, and the version number of each agent. For more information, see the
Application Discovery Service API Reference.
Note
The AWS Application Discovery Agent is a component of Amazon Inspector. The word inspector
is associated with the AWS agent download site and installation package.

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Processing and Database Components

Processing and Database Components

AWS Application Discovery Agents and the AWS Agentless Discovery Connector send data to Application
Discovery Service, which includes a processing component that ingests the data and identifies (maps) IT
assets. The service also includes the AWS Discovery database, a repository for discovered and mapped IT
assets called configuration items.

Data in the Discovery database is encrypted at rest. Encryption keys for the data are managed using the
AWS KMS.
Note
The AWS Discovery database is not a general purpose, enterprise configuration management
database (CMDB). You can't save snapshots of discovered resources or track resource changes.
The service does not alert you when resource configurations change. Similarly, though the
service does collect performance data, it is not a general purpose, health monitoring solution.

When you use Application Discovery Service, you can specify filters and query specific configuration
items in the AWS Discovery database. The service supports server, process, and connection configuration
items. This means you can specify a value for the following keys and query your IT assets.
Note
Server Performance, shown below, is an attribute of Server.

Server Process Connection ServerPerformance

cpuType name sourceIp numCores

hostName commandLine sourceProcess numCpus

hypervisor path destinationIp numDisks

osName avgFreeRAMInKB destinationPort numNetworkCards

osVersion minFreeRAMInKB dstProcess totalDiskSizeInKB

transportProtocol avgDiskReadsPerSecondInKB
count totalDiskFreeSizeInKB

lastReportedTime ipVersion totalRAMInKB

avgDiskWritesPerSecondInKB

avgDiskReadIOPS

avgDiskWriteIOPS

maxDiskReadsPerSecondInKB

maxDiskWritesPerSecondInKB

maxDiskReadIOPS

maxDiskWriteIOPS

avgNetworkReadsPerSecondInKB

avgNetworkWritesPerSecondInKB

maxNetworkReadsPerSecondInKB

maxNetworkWritesPerSecondInKB

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 AWS Application Discovery Service User Guide
Prerequisites

Prerequisites
Agentless discovery is compatible only with VMware vCenter Server.

Agent-based discovery is compatible with the following operating systems.

Linux

• Ubuntu 14
• Amazon Linux 2012.03 or 2015.03
• Centos 6 or 7
• Redhat 6 or 7

Microsoft Windows

• Windows Server 2012 R2

• Windows Server 2012
• Windows Server 2008 R2
Note
There is a known issue on servers running Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 with Service
Pack 1 where agents do not send data to Application Discovery Service. If you plan to run
agents on this operating system, install the following hotfix: Availability of SHA-2 Code
Signing Support for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

Firewall Configuration

The AWS Application Discovery Agent requires outbound access to arsenal.us-

west-2.amazonaws.com:443. It does not require any inbound ports to be open. Agents also work with
transparent web proxies.

Related Services and Partner Tools

You have the flexibility to choose the discovery and migration tools that you need by integrating with
AWS Partner tools using the Application Discovery Service API. For more information, see the Application
Discovery Service API Reference.

After completing discovery of your virtualized inventory, use AWS Server Migration Service to perform
an incremental, automated migration of your VMs to the Amazon EC2 cloud. For information, see the
AWS SMS User Guide.

You can use the AWS VM Import/Export tools to import VM images manually from your local
virtualization environment into AWS and convert them into ready-to-use Amazon EC2 Amazon Machine
Images (AMIs) or instances. For more information, see Importing a VM as an Instance Using VM Import/
Export.

Accessing Application Discovery Service

Application Discovery Service supports the following command line and programmatic access options:

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Limitations

AWS Command Line Interface

The AWS CLI provides commands for a broad set of AWS products. It is supported on Windows, Mac,
and Linux. For more information, see AWS Command Line Interface User Guide.
Application Discovery Service API

You can use the Application Discovery Service API to manage software agents in your data center,
query discovered assets, categorize discovered assets using tags, and export data. Application
Discovery Service uses JavaScript Object Notation format (JSON) to send and receive formatted
data. JSON presents data in a hierarchy so that both data values and data structure are conveyed
simultaneously. For more information, see the Application Discovery Service API Reference.
AWS SDKs and tools

If you prefer to build applications using language-specific APIs instead of submitting a request over
HTTP or HTTPS, AWS provides libraries, sample code, tutorials, and other resources for software
developers. These libraries provide basic functions that automate tasks such as cryptographically
signing your requests, retrying requests, and handling error responses, making it is easier for you to
get started. For more information, see Tools for Amazon Web Services.

Limitations
Application Discovery Service has the following limitations for agentless and agent-based discovery.

Agentless discovery

The service limits you to 10 GB of data per day. If you reach this limit, the service won't process any more
data for that day. If you frequently reach this limit, contact AWS Support about extending the limit.

Agent-based discovery

Agent-based discovery currently has the following limitations.

• The AWS Application Discovery Agent does not support Linux environments with non-standard
Ethernet naming conventions. The system requires an eth0 adapter.
• The service enforces the following maximum limits:
• 250 active agents (agents that are collecting and sending data to Application Discovery Service in
the cloud).
• 10,000 inactive agents (agents that are responsive but not collecting data).
• 10 GB of data per day (collected by all agents associated with a given AWS account).
• 90 days of data storage (after which the data is purged).

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Request Access

Setting Up AWS Application

Discovery Service

This section describes the steps required to set up Application Discovery Service.

Note
You need to provide your AWS account when you request access to Application Discovery
Service. If you don't have an account, open https://aws.amazon.com/, choose Create an AWS
Account, and follow the instructions provided.

Contents
• Request Access (p. 10)
• Create and Configure an IAM User (p. 10)
• Set Up Agentless Discovery (p. 14)
• Set Up AWS Application Discovery Agents (p. 15)

Request Access
Before you can use AWS Application Discovery Service, you must create an AWS account and configure
access permissions for that account. AWS partners and customers must also submit a request to be
whitelistedin order to gain access to Application Discovery Service. When we receive the request, we send
you detailed information about how to get started with the service.

Create and Configure an IAM User

Services in AWS, such as Application Discovery Service, require that you provide credentials when you
access them, so that the service can determine whether you have permission to access its resources. We
don't recommend that you access AWS using the credentials for your AWS account; we recommend that
you use AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) instead. Create an IAM user, and then add the user
to an IAM group with administrative permissions and grant this user administrative permissions. You can
then access AWS using a special URL and the credentials for the IAM user.

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Attach Required IAM User Policies

For more information about setting up an IAM administrator, see Creating Your First IAM Admin User and
Group. For information about IAM, see What Is IAM?

Attach Required IAM User Policies

Application Discovery Service uses the following IAM managed policies to control access to the service
or components of the service. For information about how to attach managed policies to an IAM user
account, see Working with Managed Policies.

AWSApplicationDiscoveryServiceFullAccess

Grants the IAM user account access to the Application Discovery Service API. With this policy, the
user can configure Application Discovery Service, start and stop agents, start and stop agentless
discovery, and query data from the AWS Discovery Service database. This policy also grants the user
access to Arsenal. Arsenal is an agent service managed and hosted by AWS that forwards data to
Application Discovery Service in the cloud.
AWSApplicationDiscoveryAgentAccess

Grants the AWS Application Discovery Agent access to register and communicate with Application
Discovery Service. This policy needs to be attached to any user whose credentials are to be used by
an AWS Application Discovery Agent.
AWSAgentlessDiscoveryService

Grants the AWS Agentless Discovery Connector running in your VMware vCenter Server access to
register, communicate with, and share connector health metrics with Application Discovery Service.
This policy needs to be attached to any user whose credentials are to be used by the connector.

Note
The AWSAgentlessDiscoveryService policy uses the following API actions:
awsconnector:RegisterConnector and awsconnector:GetConnectorHealth. For more
information , see API Actions of the AWSAgentlessDiscoveryService IAM Policy (p. 13).

Each of the Application Discovery Service managed policies is shown here so that you can customize
them as needed.

AWSApplicationDiscoveryServiceFullAccess

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
“discovery:*"
],
"Resource": "*"
}
]
}

AWSApplicationDiscoveryAgentAccess

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",

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Attach Required IAM User Policies

"Action": [
"arsenal:RegisterOnPremisesAgent"
],
"Resource": "*"
}
]
}

AWSAgentlessDiscoveryService

{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"awsconnector:RegisterConnector",
"awsconnector:GetConnectorHealth"
],
"Resource": "*"
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "iam:GetUser",
"Resource": "*"
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"s3:GetObject",
"s3:ListBucket"
],
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:s3:::connector-platform-upgrade-info/*",
"arn:aws:s3:::connector-platform-upgrade-info",
"arn:aws:s3:::connector-platform-upgrade-bundles/*",
"arn:aws:s3:::connector-platform-upgrade-bundles",
"arn:aws:s3:::connector-platform-release-notes/*",
"arn:aws:s3:::connector-platform-release-notes",
"arn:aws:s3:::prod.agentless.discovery.connector.upgrade/*",
"arn:aws:s3:::prod.agentless.discovery.connector.upgrade"
]
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"s3:PutObject",
"s3:PutObjectAcl"
],
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:s3:::import-to-ec2-connector-debug-logs/*"
]
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"SNS:Publish"
],
"Resource": "arn:aws:sns:*:*:metrics-sns-topic-for-*"
},
{
"Sid": "Discovery",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"Discovery:*"

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Attach Required IAM User Policies

],
"Resource": "*"
},
{
"Sid": "arsenal",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"arsenal:RegisterOnPremisesAgent"
],
"Resource": "*"
}
]
}

API Actions of the AWSAgentlessDiscoveryService IAM Policy

The AWSAgentlessDiscoveryService IAM policy uses awsconnector:RegisterConnector and
awsconnector:GetConnectorHealth to grant the AWS Agentless Discovery Connector access to register,
communicate with, and share connector health metrics with Application Discovery Service. More
specifically, these API actions perform the following operations and return the following errors:

<operation name="RegisterConnector">
<input target="RegisterConnectorRequest" /> Request type for RegisterConnector API.
<output target="RegisterConnectorResponse" /> Response type for RegisterConnector API.
<member name="snsTopicArn" target="String" /> Metrics SNS topic arn that is created/
whitelisted for caller.
<error target="AuthenticationFailureException" /> This exception is thrown if the
credentials passed in the request could not be validated or user is not authorized to
perform the operation.
<error target="ServerInternalErrorException" /> This exception is thrown if there is
erroneous logic in the service. It also includes all service dependency exceptions.
<error target="ServiceUnavailableException" /> The request has failed due to a
temporary failure of the server.
<error target="ServerThrottleException" /> This exception is thrown if maximum number
of request(for a given API) from an IAM user has been reached.
<error target="InvalidParameterException" /> The request is missing required
parameter(s) or has invalid parameter(s).
</operation>

<operation name="GetConnectorHealth">
<input target="GetConnectorHealthRequest" /> Request type for GetConnectorHealth API.
<member name="connectorId" target="String" /> Connector Id that will be used to verify
identity of caller.
<output target="GetConnectorHealthResponse" /> Response type for GetConnectorHealth
API.
<member name="serviceHealthList" target="ServiceHealthList" /> Contains all services'
health information.
<member target="ServiceHealth" /> The object that contains all health information for a
given service.
<member name="serviceName" target="String" /> The name of the service which was using
connector health metrics publisher.
<member name="healthList" target="HealthList" /> The list of health for the given
service.
<member target="Health" /> The object that represent a unique health metric that was
published from the connector.
<error target="AuthenticationFailureException" /> This exception is thrown if there is
erroneous logic in the service. It also includes all service dependency exceptions.
<error target="ServiceUnavailableException" /> The request has failed due to a
temporary failure of the server.
<error target="ServerThrottleException" /> This exception is thrown if maximum number
of request(for a given API) from an IAM user has been reached.

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Create a Key Pair

<error target="InvalidParameterException" /> The request is missing required

parameter(s) or has invalid parameter(s).
</operation>

<structure name="Health"> The object that represent a unique health metric that was
published from the connector.
<member name="name" target="String" /> The name of the health that corresponds to
"metric" field in Connector Metrics Publisher. The value of name is not user visible label
that will show in Connector dashboard.
<member name="value" target="String" /> The value for the health metric. It's a json
that contains more information about how a health will display in connector dashboard.
<member name="lastChecked" target="TimeStamp" /> The publish time for the last received
metric.
</structure>

Create a Key Pair

To use Application Discovery Service with EC2 instances, you must create a key pair. AWS uses public-key
cryptography (key pairs) to secure the login information for EC2 instances.

If you haven't created a key pair already, you can create one using the Amazon EC2 console. Note that if
you plan to launch instances in multiple regions, you'll need to create a key pair in each region. For more
information about regions, see Regions and Availability Zones (Linux).

For more information, see Amazon EC2 Key Pairs.

Set Up Agentless Discovery

To set up agentless discovery, you must deploy the AWS Agentless Discovery Connector virtual appliance
on a VMware vCenter Server host in your on-premises environment. After you deploy the virtual
appliance, you must configure the connector using the web-based console.

Deploying the AWS Agentless Discovery Connector

Virtual Appliance
Before you can download the AWS Agentless Discovery Connector virtual appliance, you must register
with AWS to be whitelisted. You will receive information about how to download the virtual appliance (as
an Open Virtualization Archive (OVA) file) after you register with AWS.

To deploy the connector virtual appliance

1. Sign in to vCenter as a VMware administrator.

2. Choose File, Deploy OVF Template. Enter the URL that was sent to you after you completed the
registration and complete the wizard.
3. On the Disk Format page, select one of the thick provision disk types. We recommend that you
choose Thick Provision Eager Zeroed, because it has the best performance and reliability. However,
it requires several hours to zero out the disk. Do not choose Thin Provision. This option makes
deployment faster but significantly reduces disk performance. For more information, see Types of
supported virtual disks in the VMware documentation.
4. Locate and open the context (right-click) menu for the newly deployed template in the vSphere
client inventory tree and choose Power, Power On. Open the context (right-click) menu for the
template again and choose Open Console. The console displays the IP address of the connector
console. Save the IP address in a secure location. You'll need it to complete the connector setup
process.

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 AWS Application Discovery Service User Guide
Configuring the AWS Agentless Discovery Connector

Configuring the AWS Agentless Discovery Connector

To finish the setup process, open a web browser and complete the following procedure.

To configure the connector using the console

1. In a web browser, type the following URL in the address bar: https://ip_address/, where ip_address is
the IP address of the connector console that you saved earlier.
2. In Step 1: License agreement, read and accept the agreement and choose Next.
3. In Step 2: Create a password, type a strong password for access to the connector and choose Next.
4. In Step 3: Network information, read the information provided and configure network settings.
5. In Step 4: Log uploads and upgrades, select the right options and choose Next.
6. In Step 5: Discovery Connector setup, choose Configure vCenter credentials.

a. For vCenter IP address, type the IP address of your VMware vCenter Server host.
b. For vCenter username, type the name of a local or domain user that the connector uses
to communicate with vCenter. For domain users, use the form domain\username or
username@domain.
c. For vCenter password, type the user password.
d. Choose Ignore security certificate to bypass SSL certificate validation with vCenter. Choose
Save.
7. Choose Configure AWS credentials and type the credentials for the IAM user who is assigned
the AWSAgentlessDiscoveryService IAM policy that you created in Attach Required IAM User
Policies (p. 11). Choose Save.
8. Choose Configure where to publish data and select the publishing options. Choose Save.

Note
After you complete this initial setup, you can access connector settings by using SSH and the
connector IP address: root@Connector_IP_address. The default user name is ec2-user and the
default password is ec2pass. We strongly encourage you to change the value of the default user
name and password.

After agentless-discovery setup is complete, you can use either the Application Discovery Service console
or the Application Discovery Service API to start collecting data, manage the service, tag and query
configuration items, and export data. You can export data as a CSV file to an Amazon S3 bucket or an
application that enables you to view and evaluate the data. For information about using the console, see
Tutorial: Using the AWS Application Discovery Service Console. For information about using the API, see
the Application Discovery Service API Reference.

Set Up AWS Application Discovery Agents

The AWS Application Discovery Agent is AWS software that you install on on-premises servers and virtual
machines (VMs) that you can target for discovery and migration. Agents run on Linux and Windows
servers and collect configuration and activity information about your applications and infrastructure.
Agents send this data to Application Discovery Service using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption.
Several minutes after you instruct agents to start collecting data, Application Discovery Service receives
the data and begins to process connections and discover dependencies. Discovered IT assets are called
configuration items. For more information about the AWS Application Discovery Agent, see AWS
Application Discovery Service Components (p. 2).

Before You Begin

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 AWS Application Discovery Service User Guide
Installing the AWS Application Discovery Agent

If you installed a Linux preview version of the AWS Application Discovery Agent, you must uninstall it or
you won't be able to install the current version. This does not apply to the agent for Windows. Use the
following command to download the removal script to your Linux instance or server:

curl -O https://d1wk0tztpsntt1.cloudfront.net/linux/latest/remove_preview_agent

To remove the preview agent, run the following command:

sudo ./remove_preview_agent

Installing the AWS Application Discovery Agent

When you are ready to install the AWS Application Discovery Agent in an on-premises data center,
work with application owners to identify the IP address or DNS name of at least one of the server or
VM workloads hosting the application. With the help of the application's operations team, install an
AWS Application Discovery Agent within that workload. The agent identifies the servers or VMs that
communicate with the workload and report the data to Application Discovery Service. You can then
install agents on one or more of these servers to discover their dependencies. Iterate through this
process until you have discovered all of the application dependencies.
Important
Only certified AWS partners can download the installer from the Amazon Partner Network. If
you are an AWS partner who wants to join the list of certified partners, contact the Application
Discovery Service team through the APN program.

Topics
• On-Premises Installation for Microsoft Windows (p. 16)
• On-Premises Installation for Linux (p. 17)

On-Premises Installation for Microsoft Windows

Use the following procedure to install an AWS Application Discovery Agent on a Windows-based VM or
server in your data center.

To install the AWS Application Discovery Agent in your data center

1. Download the agent installer to a host server or VM.

2. Open a command prompt as an administrator and navigate to the location where you saved the
installation package.
3. Run the following command to install the agent:

DiscoveryAgentInstall.exe REGION=us-west-2

Note
The AWS Application Discovery Agent automatically downloads and applies updates as they
become available. If you don't want agents to download and apply updates automatically,
then run the following command when you install the agent:

DiscoveryAgentInstall.exe REGION=us-west-2 AUTOUPDATE=No

4. Open the %SystemRoot%\system32\config\systemprofile\.aws\credentials file and specify your

AWS credentials. If you do not locate the file, you must create it. Specify credentials in the following
format:

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 AWS Application Discovery Service User Guide
Installing the AWS Application Discovery Agent

[default]
aws_access_key_id=AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE
aws_secret_access_key=wJalrXUtnFEMI/K7MDENG/bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY

Note
The IAM policy attached to your AWS account must have access to Application Discovery
Service resources. For more information, see Attach Required IAM User Policies (p. 11).
5. Update your firewall settings. The AWS Application Discovery Agent requires outbound access to
arsenal.us-west-2.amazonaws.com:443. It does not require any inbound ports to be open. Agents
also work with transparent web proxies.

Use the following procedure to verify the agent installation.

To verify that the AWS Application Discovery Agent is running

1. On the EC2 instance where you installed the AWS Application Discovery Agent, open a command
prompt with administrator permissions and navigate to C:/Program Files/Amazon Web Services/Aws
Agent.
2. Run the following command:

AWSAgentStatus.exe

This command returns the status of the currently running agent, or an error stating that the agent
cannot be contacted.

To start or stop an AWS Application Discovery Agent, use Windows Services Manager to start or stop
the AWS Agent service and the AWS Agent Updater service. To uninstall an agent, use Add/Remove
Programs to remove these services.

On-Premises Installation for Linux

Use the following procedure to install an AWS Application Discovery Agent on a Linux-based VM or
server in your data center.

To install the AWS Application Discovery Agent in your data center

1. Log on to the Linux-based server or VM and open the AWS CLI.

2. Open the ~/.aws/credentials file and specify your AWS credentials:

[default]
aws_access_key_id=AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE
aws_secret_access_key=wJalrXUtnFEMI/K7MDENG/bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY

Note
The IAM policy attached to your AWS account must have access to Application Discovery
Service resources. For more information, see Attach Required IAM User Policies (p. 11).
3. Download the agent installer to a host server or VM.
4. Open the /opt/aws/awsagent/etc/agent.cfg file and verify that the endpoint is (arsenal.us-
west-2.amazonaws.com) and the region is (us-west-2).
5. Run the following command to install the agent in the us-west-2 region:

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 AWS Application Discovery Service User Guide
Installing the AWS Application Discovery Agent

sudo bash install -r us-west-2

Note
Agents automatically download and apply updates as they become available. If you
don't want agents to download and apply updates automatically, then run the following
command when you install the agent:

sudo bash install -u false

6. After the installation completes, use the following command to remove the agent installation script:

rm install

7. Update your firewall settings. The AWS Application Discovery Agent requires outbound access to
arsenal.us-west-2.amazonaws.com:443. It does not require any inbound ports to be open. Agents
also work with transparent web proxies.

The following table lists commands that you can use to manage or uninstall agents.

Linux Commands for AWS Application Discovery Agents

Task Command

Start an agent sudo /etc/init.d/awsagent start

Verify an agent is running sudo /opt/aws/awsagent/bin/awsagent status

Stop an agent sudo /etc/init.d/awsagent stop

Restart an agent sudo /etc/init.d/awsagent restart

Uninstall an agent from Amazon Linux, CentOS, or yum remove AwsAgent

Red Hat

Uninstall an agent from Ubuntu Server apt-get remove awsagent

After agent installation is complete, you can use the Application Discovery Service console or the
Application Discovery Service API to manage your discovery agents, tag and query configuration items,
and export data. You can export data as a CSV file to an Amazon S3 bucket or an application that
enables you to view and evaluate the data. For information about using the console, see Tutorial: Using
the AWS Application Discovery Service Console. For information about using the API, see the Application
Discovery Service API Reference.

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 AWS Application Discovery Service User Guide
Step 1: Working with the Dashboard

Tutorial: Using the AWS Application

Discovery Service Console

This tutorial provides console-based examples of workflows involved in using the AWS Application
Discovery Service. Using Application Discovery Service, you can efficiently plan the migration of
applications in your virtualized on-premises environment to Amazon EC2.

Note
Before beginning this tutorial, confirm that your AWS account has been whitelisted for access
to the Application Discovery Service console. To request access, complete the form provided at
How to Start.

Contents
• Step 1: Working with the Dashboard (p. 19)
• Step 2: Working with the Data Collection Page (p. 19)
• Step 3: Working with the Servers Page (p. 21)
• Step 4: Working with the Server Network Diagram (p. 23)
• Step 5: Working with the Applications Page (p. 25)

Step 1: Working with the Dashboard

The Dashboard page offers high-level summaries of Application Discovery Service status in a single view,
along with links to other console components and to user documentation.

Step 2: Working with the Data Collection Page

The Data collection page displays a tab for each type of data collection tool currently supported:
application discovery agents and agentless discovery connectors. On this page, you can:

• To view and search data collection tools (p. 20)

• To start data collection for both agents and connectors (p. 20)

Note
You must explicitly start data collection for discovery to begin.

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 AWS Application Discovery Service User Guide
Step 2: Working with the Data Collection Page

This topic describes how to carry out typical data-related management tasks.

The following procedure focuses on discovery agents, but the steps for agentless discovery connectors
are nearly identical.

To view and search data collection tools

1. In the navigation menu, choose Data collection.

2. Choose Agents to view a table of installed application discovery agents. Each entry provides detailed
information about an agent, such as its ID and host name.
3. To filter the display, choose the menu-driven filter bar, and select one of the available fields in the
resulting menu, shown in part here:

• Collection status
• Health
• Host name
• IP address
• Agent ID
4. Select one of the available operators:

• ==
• !=
5. Select a field value. These vary based on the filter selected earlier. For Health, you see a menu with
the following possible values, shown in part here:

• HEALTHY
• RUNNING
• UNHEALTHY
• UNKNOWN
• BLACKLISTED
• SHUTDOWN

The table now displays only the entries that match your filter criterion. You can also define multiple
filters, delete filters, and bypass the filter menus by typing into the filter bar directly. For more
information about agent health status and collection status, see Querying Discovered Configuration
Items in the Application Discovery Service API Reference.

The collection states encountered in the procedures below have the following meanings:

• STARTED—The collection tool has started collecting and sending data to Discovery service.
• START_SCHEDULED—The data collection has been scheduled to be started. The next time collection
tool contacts AWS, it will start sending data to the Discovery Service and the collection status will
change to STARTED.
• STOPPED—The collection tool has stopped sending data to the Discovery service.
• STOP_SCHEDULED—The data collection has been scheduled to be stopped. The next time collection
tool contacts AWS, it will stop sending data to the Discovery service and the Collection status will
change to STOPPED.

To start data collection for both agents and connectors

1. In the navigation menu, choose Data collection, Agents.

2. In the table, select the checkbox associated with each of the agents to start.

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 AWS Application Discovery Service User Guide
Step 3: Working with the Servers Page

3. Choose Start data collection. In the Collection status field, note that the status of each of your
selected collection tools changes to either START_SCHEDULED or STARTED. The next time each
of your selected collection tools contacts AWS, it collects and sends data to Application Discovery
Service.

To stop data collection

1. In the navigation menu, choose Data collection, Agents.

2. In the table, select the checkbox associated with each of the agents to stop.
3. Choose Stop data collection. In the Collection status field, note that the status of each of your
selected collection tools is now either STOP_SCHEDULED or STOPPED. The next time each of your
selected collections tools contacts AWS, it stops sending discovery data to Application Discovery
Service. The status of each selected collection tool changes to STOPPED after data collection has
halted.

Step 3: Working with the Servers Page

The Servers page provides detailed information about each server instance known to the data discovery
tools, including basic system data, performance, service interdependencies, and network topology. You
can group servers into logical units called applications, which represent higher-level solutions that need
to be migrated jointly to remain functional. You can also apply custom tags to servers to assist in your
migration planning.

On this page, you can:

• To view and search server information (p. 21)

• To tag multiple servers (p. 22)
• To group servers as applications (p. 24)

The following procedures describe how to carry out typical server-related management tasks.

To view and search server information

1. In the navigation menu, choose Servers.

2. To filter the display, choose the menu-driven filter bar, and select one of the available fields in the
resulting menu:

• Server ID—Server configuration item identifier generated by Application Discovery Service to

uniquely identify a server.
• Host name—Host name of the server.
• OS name—Operating system name.
• OS version—Operating system version.
• Agent ID—Identifier for agent that collected server data.
• Connector ID—Identifier of the connector that collected the server data.
• Type—Server type.
• VMware more ID—VMware VM Managed Object Reference (MoRef) ID.
• VMware vCenter ID—Identifier for the vCenter.
• VMware host system ID—Identifier for the host system.
• IP address—IP address of the server.
• MAC address—Mac address of the server.
• Avg CPU usage %—Average CPU usage percentage.

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 AWS Application Discovery Service User Guide
Step 3: Working with the Servers Page

• Total disk free size (KB)—Total disk free size in KB.

• Avg free RAM (KB)—Total disk free size in KB.
• Tag value—Configuration tag value.
• Tag key—Configuration tag key.
• Application name—Name of application to which the server belongs.
• Application description—Description of application to which the server belongs.
• Application ID—Unique identifier of Application configuration item to which the server belongs.
• Process ID—Unique identifier of process configuration item that the server is running.
• Process name—Name of process that server is running.
• Process command line—Command line parameters of process that server is running.
3. Select one of the available operators:

• ==
• !=
• Contains
• Not Contains
4. Supply a value or choose from values offered by the menu. These vary based on the filter that you
selected earlier. For Type, you see a menu with values such as the following:

• EC2
• OTHER
• VMWARE_VM
• VMWARE_HOST
• VMWARE_VM_TEMPLATE

The table now displays only the entries that match your filter criterion. You can also define multiple
filters, delete filters, and bypass the filter menus by typing into the filter bar directly.
5. In the table, open a Server ID link to display details about that server. This opens a detail page
with a diagram of the server's connections to other servers, basic system information, system
performance, running processes, and inbound and outbound connections. Choose Applications to
list the applications to which the server belongs, or Tags to list tags that have been applied to the
server. Choose Actions to see the actions that can be performed on the server, including Group as
application, Add tag, Remove server from application, and Remove tag.

Tags are user-defined key/value pairs that can store meta-information about servers. Application
discovery tags are similar to AWS tags, but the two types of tag cannot be used interchangeably. You can
add or remove tags on up to 10 servers at a time on the Servers page. On server detail pages, you can
add or remove tags only for the selected server. Up to five tags can be added or removed from a server
or servers in a single operation.

To tag multiple servers

1. In the navigation menu, choose Servers.

2. In the table, select the checkboxes of the servers to tag and choose Add tag.
3. In the Add Tags window, provide a key (ttag name) and a value.
4. To add additional tags to the selected servers, choose Additional tag and repeat the previous step.
5. Choose Save. Note that table entries for the tagged servers now display the new tag keys in the Tags
field.
6. Open the Server ID link of a newly tagged server. On the detail page, note that the Tags list near
the top of the page displays the new tag keys.

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 AWS Application Discovery Service User Guide
Step 4: Working with the Server Network Diagram

7. Choose the tag key names. The Tags window opens with a table containing all of the tag key/value
pairs for the selected server.

To tag a single server

1. In the navigation menu, choose Servers.

2. In the table of servers, select a server ID to open the server detail page.
3. Choose Actions, Add tag.
4. In the Add Tags window, provide a key (tag name) and a value.
5. To add additional tags to the selected server, choose Additional tag and repeat the previous step.
6. Choose Save. On the detail page, note that the Tags list near the top of the page displays the new
tag keys.

To remove tags from multiple servers

1. In the navigation menu, choose Servers.

2. In the table of servers, select the checkboxes of the servers sharing a tag to remove.
3. Choose Actions, Remove tag.
4. In the Remove Tags window, enter the key/value pair of the tag to remove.
5. To remove additional tags from the selected servers, choose Additional tag and repeat the previous
step.
6. Choose Remove to delete the tags from the selected servers. Note that table entries for the selected
servers no longer display keys for removed tags.

To remove tags from a single server

1. In the navigation menu, choose Servers.

2. Choose Actions, Remove tag.
3. In the Remove Tags window, select the checkboxes of key/value pairs to remove.
4. To remove additional tags from the selected server, choose Additional tag and repeat the previous
step.
5. Choose Save. On the detail page, note that the Tags list near the top of the page no longer displays
keys for removed tags.

Step 4: Working with the Server Network Diagram

On a server details page, the server network diagram is displayed if the neighboring server count is
less than the allowed maximum. For larger networks, neighboring servers are displayed in a table. The
selected server for which details are displayed is shown in orange while rest of the servers are gray.
Each arrow indicates the source and destination of a network connection. The diagram initially displays
the first-order neighbors of the selected server. Choosing the + icon extends the view to additional
neighbors.

The following screenshot shows the server network diagram in its initial state for the selected server.

Hover over an element of the diagram to view additional information about it. Hovering over a server
node displays basic system information, and hovering over a connection displays the destination port
and network protocol.

The following screenshot shows the detailed information displayed for a server node.

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 AWS Application Discovery Service User Guide
Step 4: Working with the Server Network Diagram

Choose a server node to select it. Selected nodes are displayed with green check mark in nodes. Multiple
nodes can be selected and grouped as an application. Open a server node to view the details for that
server.

In the following screenshot, two neighboring server nodes have been selected.

Application Discovery Service supports grouping individual servers into applications. An application is a
higher-level group of interdependent servers that implement a solution together. On the Servers page,
you can select up to 10 discovered servers at a time and group them into a new or existing application.
From a server detail page, you can manipulate the diagram of neighboring servers to create or add to an
application.

To group servers as applications

1. In the navigation menu, choose Servers.

2. In the table, select the checkboxes of the servers to group as an application and choose Group as
application.
3. In the Group as application window, choose Group as a new application. Provide values for
Application name and (optional) Application description.
4. Choose Save. Note that table entries for the grouped servers now display the name of the new
application in the Applications field.

To add servers to an existing application

1. In the navigation menu, choose Servers.

2. In the table, select the checkboxes of the servers to add to an application.
3. Choose Group as application, Add to an existing application and select an application from the list.
4. Choose Save. Note that table entries for the selected servers now display the name of the existing
application in the Applications field.

To group servers in a new application using the interactive diagram

1. In the navigation menu, choose Servers.

2. In the interactive diagram, select the server that owns the detail page, and then select one or more
neighboring servers. In the following screenshot, one additional server has been selected.
3. Choose Group as application, Group as a new application.
4. Provide values for Application name and (optional) Application description.
5. Choose Save. In the following example screenshot, note that the new application (NewApp, in this
example) is now listed in the Applications list.

To add a server to an existing application from the interactive diagram

1. In the navigation menu, choose Servers.

2. In the interactive diagram, select a server to add to an existing application. In the following example
screenshot, server ip-10-0-0-33, has been selected.
3. Choose Group as application, Add to an existing application.
4. In the Group as application window, choose an application from the list.
5. Choose Save.
6. Choose Show table of all connections. Note that the Applications value for the selected server
confirms that it is now a member of the application, along with the original members.

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 AWS Application Discovery Service User Guide
Step 5: Working with the Applications Page

To remove multiple servers from an application

1. In the navigation menu, choose Servers.

2. In the table, select the checkboxes of the servers to remove from an application where they have
shared membership.
3. Choose Actions, Remove server from application.
4. In the Remove server from application window, choose the application from which to remove the
server.
5. Choose Remove. Note that the Applications field no longer includes the selected servers.

To remove a server using the interactive diagram

1. In the navigation menu, choose Servers.

2. In the table of servers, for Server ID, select the server to remove from an application.
3. In the interactive diagram, choose Actions, Remove server from application.
4. In the Remove server from application window,choose the application from which to remove the
server.
5. Choose Remove. Note that the removed application no longer appears in the Applications list.

Step 5: Working with the Applications Page

The Applications page lists your applications and allows you to view the servers that compose them.
Each table entry represents an application and displays the application ID, application name, description,
number of member servers, and creation time. You can search applications, create applications, and
delete applications. On the detail page for each application, you can add and remove servers.

On this page, you can:

• To view and search applications (p. 25)

• To create an application (p. 26)
• To delete one or more servers from an application (p. 26)

To view and search applications

1. In the navigation menu, choose Applications.

2. In the table, for Application ID, select an application with a non-zero number of member servers. A
detail page with a list of all the member servers displays.
3. On the detail page of the selected application, choose the Server ID of a member server. From
detail page for that server, you can perform management operations for the selected server
described in Step 3: Working with the Servers Page (p. 21), including deleting it from the
application. To delete servers in bulk from an application, see To delete one or more servers from an
application (p. 26) below.
4. To filter the display, choose the menu-driven filter bar, and choose one of the available fields in the
resulting menu:

• Application ID
• Application name
• Description
• Server ID
5. Choose one of the available operators:

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 AWS Application Discovery Service User Guide
Step 5: Working with the Applications Page

• ==
• !=
• Contains
• Not Contains
6. Supply a value or choose from predefined values. These vary based on the filter field selected earlier.
For Application name, you see a menu listing all the applications that you previously created.

The table now displays only the entries that match your filter criterion. You can also define multiple
filters, delete filters, and bypass the filter menus by typing into the filter bar directly.

To create an application

1. In the navigation menu, choose Applications.

2. Choose Create new application.
3. In the Create new application window, provide values for Application name and (optionally)
Application description.
4. When done, choose Create. Note that the newly created application is listed in the table.

To delete one or more applications

1. In the navigation menu, choose Applications.

2. In the table of applications, select the checkboxes of applications to delete.
3. Choose Delete applications.
4. In the Delete application window, choose Delete. Note that entries for deleted applications have
been removed from the table.

To delete one or more servers from an application

1. In the navigation menu, choose Applications.

2. In the table, for Application ID, select an application with a non-zero number of member servers. A
detail page with a list of all the member servers displays.
3. On the detail page of the selected application, select the checkboxes of servers to delete from the
application.
4. When done, choose Remove server from application.
5. In the Remove server from applications window, when you are sure you want to proceed, choose
Remove. Note that entries for deleted servers have been removed from the table.

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 AWS Application Discovery Service User Guide
General Troubleshooting Tools

Troubleshooting the AWS

Application Discovery Agent

The following documentation can help you troubleshoot problems with Application Discovery Service
that you might encounter while migrating your on-premises servers to Amazon EC2.

General Troubleshooting Tools

Before you begin troubleshooting specific issues, it helps to familiarize yourself with following basic
approaches and tools.

Inspect the AWSApplication Discovery Agent

Configuration
You can find and inspect your existing AWSApplication Discovery Agent configuration file for your
operating system:

• On Linux: /opt/aws/aws/agent/etc/agent.cfg
• On Windows: %Program Files%AWS%agent.cfg

Run the AWS Application Discovery Agent in Offline

Mode
To inspect the raw data captured by your agent, you can run it in offline mode. While in offline mode,
data collected by the agent is logged to a local file instead of being sent to Application Discovery
Service.

To enter offline mode

1. Create a temporary folder, such as /var/tmp for Linux or C:\tmp for Windows.
2. Edit the file the appropriate file for your operating system:

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 AWS Application Discovery Service User Guide
Enable Logging for the AWS Application Discovery Agent

• Linux: /opt/aws/aws/agent/etc/agent.cfg
• Windows: C:\ProgramData\Amazon Web Services\AWS Agent\agent.cfg

Add the following lines; in addition to your temporary folder path, supply a file name where
indicated.

{
"MustCollect" : true,
"Publisher": "File",
"MsgFile": "temporary path and file",
"SystemPerformanceMsgs": true,
"SystemPerformanceUpdateFrequency": 1,
"SystemPerformanceMsgFrequency": 30,
"ProcessPerformanceMsgs": true,
"ProcessPerformanceUpdateFrequency": 1,
"ProcessPerformanceMsgFrequency": 30,
"ListeningPortInfo": true,
"Users": true,
"Groups": true,
"NetworkInterfaces": true,
"Terminals": true,
"PackageInfo": true,
"InstanceMetaData": true,
"NetworkConnections": true,
"ListeningPorts" : true,
"Processes": true,
"CodeModules": true,
"KernelModules": true,
"DnsEntries": true,
"Subscribers": "discovery"
}

This configuration causes the agent to write events to a location specified by MsgFile. The metrics
that the agent collects are also specified. (In normal operation, the AWS endpoint would supply this
information.)
3. Stop and restart the agent using the command appropriate for your operating system:

• For Linux, sudo /etc/init.d/awsagent stop and sudo /etc/init.d/awsagent start

• For Windows, sc stop awsagent and sc start awsagent
4. To inspect what events have been emitted by the agent, open the log file that you designated.

Enable Logging for the AWS Application Discovery

Agent
Complete the following procedure to create a log of agent actions.

To activate debugging

1. Add the following lines to agent.cfg:

{
"SubSystems" : "ALL",
"LogLevels" : "LogAll",
"LogFile" : "c:\\tmp\\agent.log"
}

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 AWS Application Discovery Service User Guide
Troubleshooting the AWS Application Discovery Agent Data

2. Stop and restart the agent using the command appropriate for your operating system:

• For Linux, sudo /etc/init.d/awsagent stop and sudo /etc/init.d/awsagent start

• For Windows, sc stop awsagent and sc start awsagent

Troubleshooting the AWS Application Discovery

Agent Data
The following actions can assist with troubleshooting AWS Application Discovery Agent data.

• Although AWS does not currently support console-based data visualization for the Application
Discovery Agent, you can manually convert the CSV format of discovery data to GraphML format and
view it offline with any open-source visualization tool that can consume GraphML format.
• Download sample agent data in CSV format.
• Contact AWS Support to have obsolete discovery data purged from the repository.

Troubleshooting AWS Application Discovery Agent

Configuration
Use the following information to diagnose or repair errors with AWS Application Discovery Agent
configuration.

AWS Application Discovery Agent Fails to Register

If you encounter the error "Registration failure reason: Authentication failure: Authentication failed as
the incoming request was not signed by AWS credentials”, try the following approaches:

• If you are using Linux, confirm that the .aws/credentials file is located in the root user's home
directory as described in On-Premises Installation for Linux. The file must not be in some other user's
home directory.
• If you are using Windows, confirm that the AWS credentials are properly installed, as described in
On-Premises Installation for Microsoft Windows. Check that the permissions provided for the AWS
credentials conform to the appropriate managed policy, as described in Attach Required IAM User
Policies.
• Run the following commands:
• Linux: /opt/aws/awsagent/etc/agent.cfg
• Windows: C:\ProgramData\Amazon Web Services\AWS Agent .\AWSAgentStatus.exe
• Check the region in the output. Agents should be configured to communicate with the endpoint of
ADS in the us-west-2 region.
• Check the time skew from your NTP servers and correct if necessary. Incorrect time skew causes the
agent registration call to fail.
• Check that you are meeting all prerequisites, including OS support. If you attempt to install the
inspector agent package on Ubuntu and the operation fails with message containing "Failed to find an
inspector agent package for this OS...", contact AWS Support.
• If you use agentless discovery and don’t see inventory information after starting data collection with
the connector, confirm that you have registered the connector with your vCenter Server instance.
Agentless discovery does not support a standalone ESX host that is not part of the vCenter Server
instance.

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 AWS Application Discovery Service User Guide
Failure to Create AWS Application Discovery
Agent Credentials for Windows Server

• If you are using Windows 2008 R2, confirm that the security patches are up-to-date.

Failure to Create AWS Application Discovery Agent

Credentials for Windows Server
If you try to install the AWS Application Discovery Agent on Windows Server but cannot find or create
the credentials folder at %SystemRoot%\system32\config\systemprofile\.aws, you need to create the
folder using the command line. If you still cannot create the .aws folder, try appending a period to the
folder name (that is, .aws.).

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 AWS Application Discovery Service User Guide

Document History for AWS

Application Discovery Service

The following table describes the important changes to the documentation since the last release of
Application Discovery Service.

Latest documentation update: December 17, 2016

Change Description Date

Console AWS management console December 19, 2016

added.

Launch of agentless discovery Added content that describes July 28, 2016
how to set. up and configure
agentless discovery.

Updates Added Windows Server details May 20, 2016

to ???. Fixed various command
issues.

Initial publication Released Application Discovery May 12, 2016

Service User Guide.

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 AWS Application Discovery Service User Guide

AWS Glossary

For the latest AWS terminology, see the AWS Glossary in the AWS General Reference.

32