Core Concepts
This article introduces the core concepts of vScope. Its purpose is to help new users—especially vScope administrators—understand how vScope is structured, how data is collected, and what can be achieved using the platform.
Before configuring discovery or working with reports and dashboards, it is important to understand these foundational concepts.
About vScope
Section titled “About vScope”vScope is an on-premises asset repository and discovery platform. It continuously collects and structures data from your IT environment to provide a reliable, up-to-date view of your assets and how they are related.
During discovery, data is automatically:
- Collected from multiple systems and platforms
- Normalized to reduce duplicates
- Enriched with relationships between assets
- Stored with full historical traceability from the first discovery run
This structured asset repository forms the foundation for all functionality in vScope. With accurate and traceable asset data in place, vScope supports use cases such as:
- Reporting, collaboration, and IT visibility: easy to build, easy to update, easy to share
- Compliance: automated health checks based on policies, rules, and industry best practices
- Governance: adding business context to IT assets to understand how technology supports the organization
- Billing: linking IT costs directly to discovered assets to support transparent and accurate internal billing
Assets
Section titled “Assets”Assets are the core building blocks of vScope.
An asset represents a discoverable resource in your IT environment. While almost anything can be modeled as an asset, vScope focuses on resources that can be automatically identified and inventoried.
Assets are grouped into asset types, each with its own set of attributes. Common asset types include:
- Machines
- Certificates
- License plans
- IP addresses
- User accounts
- Disks
- Group policies
- File Systems
Each asset exists as a unique object in the asset repository and is automatically related to other assets. In total, there are over 80 asset types in vScope.
Tags represent attributes and metadata associated with assets.
A tag consists of a Name : Value pair and is one of the primary ways vScope stores information about assets. Most tags are automatically collected during discovery, but you can also:
- Create custom tags
- Extend discovery to collect additional data
Tags are used throughout vScope for filtering, grouping, reporting, and analysis.
Learn more: Creating and managing tags in vScope
Relations
Section titled “Relations”Relations describe how assets are connected to each other.
Relations are always bidirectional, meaning they can be viewed from both sides. For example:
- Virtual Machine → Is hosted by → Host
- Host → Is hosting → Virtual Machine
Relations are automatically identified during discovery. You do not need to create or maintain them manually.
Understanding relations is key to understanding how vScope models dependencies and structure across your IT environment.
Discovery
Section titled “Discovery”Discovery is the automated, agentless process vScope uses to collect asset data from your environment.
Discovery runs continuously according to configured schedules and can execute multiple times per day. Each run updates existing assets, adds new ones, and preserves historical changes over time.
Learn more: Adding data sources and configuring discovery
Credentials and Targets
Section titled “Credentials and Targets”To collect data, vScope uses probes that connect to defined targets using assigned credentials.
- Credentials define how vScope authenticates (for example, username/password or private key).
- Targets define what vScope connects to, such as IP ranges, hostnames, individual IP addresses, or URLs.
Smart Targets
Section titled “Smart Targets”vScope automatically expands discovery coverage using Smart Targets.
When new systems are identified during discovery, vScope can automatically classify them as additional targets for relevant platforms. If suitable credentials exist, those targets can be inventoried without manual configuration.
This helps maintain broad and consistent coverage with minimal administrative effort.
Schedules
Section titled “Schedules”Schedules control when discovery runs and what scope is included.
You can use schedules to:
- Control discovery frequency
- Limit or expand discovery scope
- Separate different discovery strategies
Main Schedule
Section titled “Main Schedule”The Main Schedule is the default, complementary schedule used for all credentials and targets that are not explicitly assigned to another schedule.
Its purpose is to ensure that discovery coverage remains complete even when custom schedules are introduced, reducing the risk of unintentionally excluded assets.
Content
Section titled “Content”Content refers to the views and tools used to interact with the data stored in vScope.
Examples of content include:
- Dashboards
- Tables
- IT service layouts
- Tracker cases
vScope provides a set of built-in content managed by vScope itself. As a general rule, content managed by vScope cannot be modified or deleted.
Learn more: Using the Content Library in vScope