Recently found out that the VM Team, in their awesomeness, have been reusing computer names in different domains. My expectation is that as long as the Serial Numbers were different, then we should be seeing multiple CI's with the same name, in a different domain, with a different serial number. Specifically, 3 different servers, same name, 3 different domains, 3 different serial numbers.
This isn't happening. Rather, we have a single CI that, per the audit logs, keeps having it's information updated back and forth between the different servers, as those servers are discovered by multiple schedules. So, it will switch the serial number, ip address, and domain attributes (and others) during schedule 1, change again on schedule 2, then back to the values found last on schedule 3.
When reviewing discovery logs, we see the following:
So, we can see that it is using the name, rather than the Serial Number from the logs.
The first rule for SCCM ID & class name is ignored, as expected.
The second Identifier Rule "Serial Number Table & Class" has multiple records in the Serial Number table (cmdb_serial_number). There are multiple records for the same SN# with different types and different SN# for the same CI. Unsure how this happened, but it is there. I understand the message here, and while I'd like to understand more about how stuff gets in this table and such, at least the message makes sense.
The third identifier Rule "Serial Number and Class Name" is based solely on the cmdb_hardware table. Doing a search on the serial numbers, I find a single record for 1 serial number and no matching records for the other 2 records.
It then uses the 4th Identifier rule of name, to get the match.
Why doesn't it create a new CI when there isn't a match on the CI for rule 3?
Thanks,
Nathan
An update here.
I've change the CI Identification rule that matches on Name to match on Name and Serial Number. So, in this case, I am specifically talking about: Configuration > Identification/Reconciliation > CI Identifiers > Name: Hardware Rule > Bottom Tab "Identifier Entries". Added the attribute Serial Number to the rule.
Re-ran discovery for the specific server. Did NOT get a new record. Still updated the record based upon name. Discovery log shows the following:
I found that the 'Source' column here doesn't refer to a CI Identifier. Rather it appears to reference the Discovery Definition > CI Identification > Identifiers > Name: "Name and Class Name" record.
So, I am very confused now. It appears to be using the Legacy CMDB Identification rules, rather than the new CI Identifier rules (Discovery identifiers : Properties that control identifier version). Yet, we upgraded to Jakarta from Helsinki. Now, we did go from Fuji to Helsinki, but how I read it, it doesn't appear to matter in that case.
Anyone have any thoughts on what might be going on?
Thanks,
Nathan
