The serial number for computer records are not properly set.

[Pallavi71]

Hello all,

When the computer records are updated by discovery then for some of the computer (cmdb_ci_computer) records, serial number are not properly set. Sometimes serial number is getting captured as baseboard instead of bios/systems/chassis serial number and sometime it is set as 'VMware-43 45...'. 

Any guidance or tips would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you!!

[VivekSattanatha]

Hi,

Its by design, for physical devices it will bring the bios serial number if its vmware the bios serial number would come with 'Vmware -...'

You can check with this command

Get-WMIObject Win32_Bios | Select-Object SerialNumber

Regards,

Vivek

[CMDB Whisperer]

In the past I have seen some inconsistencies as to which serial number was used, i.e. BIOS, baseboard, chassis.  And for some Windows Servers this was causing serial numbers to flip back and forth on the same CI depending on whether it was coming in from SCCM or Discovery, and also resulted in CI duplication that could not be permanently resolved.  When I traced this down I found that the Discovery pattern was simply using the first serial number in the list for the CI serial number field, and that for some reason different servers were reporting these serial numbers in different order.  I determined that this was a shortcoming of the Discovery pattern, and that what it should be doing is to define priorities of specific serial number types to use, but instead it is just assuming that the one that appears first is correct.  I never did come back to fix the error, and I didn't witness this on any other customer, but in theory the shortcoming is still there.

As for VMWare serial numbers, that should be a non-issue, because if it is a virtual server, that is the serial number you should be seeing in every case.  You should never be seeing a serial number for the physical host.

[chuckm · Accepted solution]

This is a known issue that occurred when ServiceNow Discovery moved from Probe-based discovery to Pattern-based discovery.  For Windows Probe-based discovery, the BIOS serial number was by entered on the [cmdb_ci_computer] form.  For Windows Pattern-based discovery, the Baseboard Serial number was entered on the [cmdb_ci_computer] form.

This issue is documented in several KB articles:

• KB0786378 BaseBoard Serial number is populated on the serial number record instead of the BIOS Serial number for windows servers when using the Windows - OS server pattern for discovery.
• KB0861828 The baseboard serial number is populated on the serial number record instead of the BIOS serial number for Windows servers when using the Windows - OS Servers pattern for discovery
• KB0860250 BaseBoard Serial number is populated on the serial number record instead of the BIOS Serial number for windows computers when using the Windows OS - Desktops pattern for discovery

ServiceNow has created an out of the box solution to choose the BIOS Serial Number instead of the Baseboard Serial Number for the Windows OS - Servers pattern.  The update was released in Paris.

New mid server property introduced "mid.win.baseboard.or.bios.insertion" , based on the property value (true / false) pattern will insert BaseBoard or Bios Serial number.

• If false - BaseBoard number will be populated
• If true - BIOS serial number will be inserted

For example, if you want the BIOS serial number to show up on the Computer [cmdb_ci_computer] record during discovery set the property mid.win.baseboard.or.bios.insertion to true on each MID server as shown:

Additional background and history can be found in the following community articles:

Is it possible to modify the SNcSerialNumber script to take the chassis serial number as the default...

Computer Discovery. How to replace baseboard serial number with bios

discovery workstation scans - incorrect serial number

After upgrading to London, Discovery is picking baseboard serial number as CI serial number

[Rahul Priyadars]

refer this article it may help - seems pretty latest one

https://support.servicenow.com/kb?id=kb_article_view&sysparm_article=KB0786378

By default, OOB 'Windows OS - Servers' Pattern return Baseboard Serial number, but in some cases, the customer might want to use the Bios Serial number for the CI instead.

Regards

RP