Discovery and CI updating best practice, advice

[Les1]

We've initiated discovery, version= Kingston

For our newly imported CI's , if a particular team desires for attributes to be formatted a certain way, what are our options, what would be your advice? 

I've read that there are a couple of bulk CI update plugins, but thought this was achievable via the Discovery process itself.

Thanks in advance!

[doug_schulze]

Les, 

If you have an existing CMDB with data then look to the features of the Identification and Reconciliation Engine (IRE) when 'discovering' existing systems.  Know that if you have any attributes that discovery does not gather in your own unique fields, they will remain the same, not going to touch them. But if you have shared attributes that you want a priority set to who is the source of 'truth' should be, then look at data source precedence rules for assistance.

[Les1]

Thanks Doug

The focus of the question was around updating ootb attributes to display in a particular format, like if Discovery detects "windows server 20xx" maybe our team would it to display "20xx window server"   (not a true use case, i'm just hypothesizing). however the requirements by the team hasnt actually been proposed so until then I don't truly know what they're desiring. Thanks for your response to help point in the right direction! 

[DaveHertel]

Les,  if you want custom 'formatting rules' for how OOB attributes appear, 1 option is to consider custom business rules that upon insert/update of a given CI -- of which you would have to define the criteria when to & not to take an action - then the contents could be updated.   But honestly, sounds like a lot of work and worse yet, long-term maintenance of a proprietary solution.... just to override default formatting.   
  Similarly, the sensors or patterns could be updated to do the same thing, but that has an additional downside as you may find yourself tweaking OOB sensors or patterns... then when upgrades come along you are at risk of not getting updates for those.

Since specific requirements have yet to be defined, I'd challenge the team with:  1) Define several specific requirements, including scope boundaries (when the 'rules' do/don't apply) and articulate WHY the BUSINESS needs them.  2) After you have specifics, create a ballpark estimate of effort to build a solution including the long-term sustaining effort.  Turn this into a $ estimate.

After you know what they want, and estimate the short & long term impact to the business, it may help clarify if this is a business need or not.    My 2.5 cents...

Hope that helps?

[Les1]

Thats good stuff, thanks Dave