What is the purpose of the "Attributes" column on cmdb_ci which is 65,000 characters?

[Todd O]

There is a column on cmdb_ci out of the box that is called Attributes. It's max length is 65,000 characters and it appears as though it's supposed to hold some xml value as the label on the form has an xml label added automatically.   I may want to use this but won't if it's intended for a specific purpose. Thank you!

Todd

p.s., I could NOT find any documentation on this column. If you also happen to have a link for this, please share!

[anurag92 · Accepted solution]

Does your CMDB data comes from Discovery or other interfaces? If yes, don't   touch that field. A lot of devices/applications have a specific code which contains information about itself. For eg: A tomcat apache server has an attribute field which tells what version it is running on. So, if there is any data coming from Discovery or other interfaces like SCCM, you should not be touching this field. Otherwise, it is safe to use it.

Please mark helpful/correct as suitable.

[Todd O]

No discovery is being used right now but we plan on pumping a lot of data into SN through REST API. I thought of using this field but stopped as it seems like it might have a specific purpose.   The field is 65,000 characters which to me meant something special was meant for that. Do you have any documentation link that describes out of box columns that are unique such as this one? I cannot find anything. Thanks.

Todd

[HugoFirst]

I appreciate Anurag's advice because I just started using the attributes field in the past 2 weeks. I'm using it to tag servers, service_offering entries and entries in a customized table which extends cmdb_ci_service.

In my research, I could find no entries that contained data in that field.   But I will be more careful in the future when and if I need to use it for other record types.

I just now checked my tomcat ci's and I can confirm that there _IS_ data in them.   I've learned something today.   Thank you!

[VaranAwesomenow]

I would like to add a little more insight into this.

As @Todd O  mentioned if CMDB is populated using REST API or other sources, then this field comes handy to store information that otherwise cant be stored in any other fields on a CI.

Same is being done by ServiceNow, as @anurag92  @HugoFirst mentioned when discovery runs it populates some of the CI information such as tomcat attributes into this column which kind of extends a similar thought process.

Having said that, it would be prudent to use it after enough thought and on class by class basis, if a class gets data only for a source tat doesnt use this field already then it safe to use it, but if source system writes into this field then for that class this field cant be used.

On a final note, when attributes are added they get stored in following format

<![CDATA[ xxxyyzzz]]