Relationships for MAC Addresses

[Alan Prochaska]

The CI Class Manager shows both parent and child suggested relationships for IP Address, but only child suggested relationship for MAC Address.  Why?  A physical Ci (ie. one which has an associated asset) will likely have both a MAC and IP Address.  I'd expect those CIs to have an Owns relationship to both MAC Address and IP Address.  See the attachments.  The IP Address map is rather large, and I couldn't figure out how to paste it inline.

IP Address and MAC Address fields are OOB in the cmdb_ci table.  MAC address does not appear in alm_hardware

SN Docs say MAC Addr should be specified only on Network Adapter, not on Server.  Ok, but we're not instantiating Network Adapter so the MAC Addr gets specified on the parent (eg. Server, Computer, etc). 

Is it that a MAC Addr should be 1:1 with the device, so it would be stored in the attribute as a reference rather than a relationship?

Any guidance or experience re how you work with IP and MAC addresses would be helpful.  Thank you!

Alan Prochaska

[#2]

I'm not sure what table you are looking at for the MAC Address attachment you posted, unless you renamed network adapter to mac address?

Make sure that you have the CMDB CI Class Models application installed as it contains a lot of the modeling changes to the CMDB.  If you have that installed you should see more suggested relationships.

As general guidance you should use the IRE dependent relationships of

1) Parent Hardware Owns::Owned By Child Network Adapter

2) Parent Hardware Owns::Owned By Child IP Address

There are also the following reference fields:

1) cmdb_ci on network adapter

2) nic on ip address

It is possible to have multiple MAC addresses and likewise IP addresses on a single device, that is why it is not recommended to use the MAC address and IP address fields on cmdb_ci.  Using them can cause issues with identification of a CI (MAC address mainly), and thrashing of CI data.

[Appli]

Hi, a guidance is described on DOC page:

Network adapter and IP address:

• Store the MAC address of the network adapter installed on a server, in the Network Adapter [cmdb_ci_network_adapter] class.
• Store the IP address in the IP Address [cmdb_ci_ip_address] class.
• Do not store the MAC address or the IP address in the Server [cmdb_ci_server] class.​

Rationale behind: a device itself does not have a MAC address, but a network card has it - hence MAC addresses are populated in cmdb_ci_network_adapter table. And device can have multiple MAC addresses but there is just one MAC address field in cmdb_ci, it means storing all of them there is not really possible.

Hope it helps

[Alan Prochaska]

Hi Appli,

The DOC page link didn't resolve.  Can you provide an alternate reference?

Alan

[Appli]

Hi, this is a correct link, sorry.

Hope it helps