OTbase Discovery is the active-scanning component of the OTbase platform. While OTbase Inventory usually resides in the enterprise network, OTbase Discovery lives inside your process networks, automatically identifying OT and IT devices and capturing their configurations.
What Is a Discovery Node?
A Discovery node is a single instance of OTbase Discovery—service, agent, or executable—responsible for one or more networks. In multi‑site deployments it is common to operate hundreds of nodes acting as a discovery swarm that reports to one central Inventory database.
Note: Node count has no impact on license fees; size your nodes for practicality, not cost.
Traffic between OTbase Discovery and OTbase Inventory is one‑way, outbound only, making it easy to firewall or diode the process network. See above figure.
OTbase Discovery variants
| Variant | Installs? | Multi-network Probing | Typical Use‑Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| Service (default) | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | Always‑on scanning of one or many subnets |
| Agent | ✅ Yes | 🚫 Local host only | When remote network scans are disallowed (secure zones) |
| Executable (USB) | 🚫 No (no install) |
🚫 Local host only | Ad‑hoc audits or air‑gapped assets; saves data to USB |
The Discovery Software architecture
With the exception of the Agent and Executable (USB) variants, OTbase Discovery comprises of two core components:
- Discovery Service - This is a headless service that runs in the background and performs periodic probing.
- Discovery Client - A front-end GUI (Windows only) that serves as the user interface for configuring the Discovery Service.
The service implementation makes sure that OTbase Discovery continues running even when no one is logged on to the computer which the software executes. This is important because automatic transfer of asset data usually takes place at night.
The Discovery Client (Windows Only)
The Discovery Service does nothing on its own before it is configured. This is usually done using the discovery client. The discovery client lets you fine-tune probing options for various networks and devices, and it also provides immediate feedback if your probing is configured properly, because it will show a subset of discovery results right away.
Centralized Management Application
We've realize that running dozens of discovery nodes and having to remote desktop (RDP) into each node individually does not scale. That is why we've created OTbase Discovery Manager. OTbase Discovery Manager allows you to configure all of your discovery nodes in one place. Click here to learn more about OTbase Discovery Manager
The OTbase Discovery REST API
Every OTbase Discovery node exposes a REST interface, allowing you to perform configuration changes programmatically. Click here to learn more about the Discovery REST API.
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