CI Identifier for different classes

[Community Alums]

Hi All,

When we are trying to discover devices in our network, we found that Some devices are throwing up an error "Duplicate record found during field based matching".

Actually, these devices are not duplicate but they are identified as "Duplicates" because of the CI Identifier rule "Hardware".

There is only one CI Identifier rule for all Hardware devices. They are failing by checking the Identifier entry "Serial number" mentioned in this "Hardware rule" for windows servers.

We are planning to write different identifier rules for Windows, printers, switches, Linux..

Can you please give your ideas on how to write the identifier for different classes. Is it recommended to write different identifier rules for different classes or just Hardware rule for all h/w devices(with changing the criterions).

[Chris M3]

The issue with writing rules for those sub-classes is that you can not identify something that has been mis-classified.   I'll give you an example from our use (We built some of these rules, before ultimately removing them after realizing they didn't work).

We built a rule for example under the Windows server class.   After checking some fields in the windows server table, we added a rule against the server table in case the asset had not yet been classified as windows. The asset had been created from an invoice, and would be sitting at the base server class (since windows or linux could be installed on it) before going into the appropriate class.

The engine would let you configure these types of rules, but they don't actually get processed.   After an upgrade (I think our Istanbul upgrade), the system now tells you that these rules won't work.

On to your issue.   Are you saying you have multiple devices that share the same serial number, yet are valid? (We have this case too, but its due to an engineering mistake on a server team)

[Community Alums]

Thanks a lot for the quick response Chris!

I wanted to confirm, Are you saying that writing sub classes(CI Identifiers) for hardware devices doesn't work?

Regarding our issue, yes, We have many devices(Windows servers) which share same serial number. so, I have removed that from our identifier rule and tested back, but now, its again failing with "Serial number and Serial type". They have set up around 10 windows servers with one serial number and another 10 with other serial number. So, I don't see that Serial number is part of unique criterion to differentiate windows devices. Am I true?

How can I proceed with this?

[Chris M3]

An Identifier Entry on a sub-table (Windows Server), can not have a rule that references back to a parent table (Server).

In our similar situation, we setup an additional identifier rule on the Hardware Rule, ahead of the Serial Number rule, to help uniquely identify.   In our case, serial number combined with name.   This isn't a perfect solution, as the CI's must all exist to prevent it from falling back on the serial number rule (which then finds duplicates), but it got us over the hump.

Now.   If you have no worries about something being mis-classified, such as my example, where a new windows server was in the base server table until discovery found it and identified the OS, then you could just do the windows server rule.   You just might end up with a duplicate CI in a different table if created through other means.

[Community Alums]

Chris, We have different unique attributes for different hardware devices. The main criterions which differentiates our windows devices are "IP Address, MAC Address and   Name". So, I have created an Identifier for identifying windows servers specially.

Now, When I run the discovery against windows servers, I am getting "CMDB Identification Error: Can't find any rule to apply to independent record with payload index 0 and class Name 'cmdb_ci_win_server'.   Can you please tell me how to proceed with this error.