Why are assets/CI's a 1 to 1 and not 1 to many

[loberle]

So if the asset record holds the financial information and the CI stores the other information, what is the best way to track re-used of equipment.

Example..

ABC123 is the hardware asset created. It has invoice details, contract info, po, and monies spent. This has a 1 to 1 relationship with the "WindowsServerABC"   CI. Which works great at first until it is time to retire that Server CI. So WindowsServerABC is being re-used to be LinuxServerABC. So this server now has a different class and purpose. It still has the same serial number, hardware components, and financial information. So now I have a hardware asset that is tied to a CI that "retired" and a new CI that is not tied to the hardware asset record anymore.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[klf1123]

Yes I understand but what I am saying is that you should not decommission the CI and create a new one. Just update the existing one to the new name and OS. What is the purpose of decommissioning the CI and creating a new one. As you said it is the same box it is just being repurposed. The CI is the representation of the hardware and it's attributes.

[Teri Bobst]

I disagree with renaming the CI. A Windows server built to support your Financial system would have its own set of historical tasks/incidents/changes etc than a Windows server built to support your HR system.

If you just rename the CI, you are now going to see Financial incidents/changes/etc tied to an HR CI.

I would strongly recommend against that.

Since ServiceNow does not have a way to associate multiple CI's you would be better off creating a new asset record to tie to the new CI, and copy your financial information tot he new Asset record.

My two cents 🙂

[Damhoej]

teribobst How would you handle refurbishing and reuse of computers?

In my company we are looking into refurbishing and reusing our assets (computers), and the big question is "how do we "retire" the CI from the old user in order to get the new user a "new" CI (in order to track changes and incidents along with costs).

bsweetser Do you have an input for this question?

[Community Alums]

Thanks for the tag, Jens.

I would keep the single asset for the item with its associated CI. The CI goes through a decommission process and ends up In stock until it is reprovisioned with new purpose. For infrastructure items, these things should be going through a Change process for the Decommission/provision that tracks these changes, including name and purpose. For end user devices, this can simply be audited if you desire.

Costs for maintenance can be shifted to the new cost center.

All costs are associated with the single Asset so you aren't seeing the number of assets grow in your environment in a strange way.

You still have all past task history available on the CI, which could prove useful in troubleshooting if it is a problem related to the device or Model of device.

These are just some quick thoughts...

Ben

[Teri Bobst]

Hi Jens, I agree with Ben and we do this as well. When the computer is "reclaimed" it is put back into stock. We have a BR that clears the assignment information and releases any software entitlements when the computer state changes from In Use to In Stock.

When the computer is reassigned, the state goes back to In Use with a new Assigned to entry.

Any existing incidents or tasks tied to that CI will remain, but in my viewpoint this would be the desirable result. For example, if a reassigned computer has incidents reported, you would be able to see if there were any similar incidents reported prior to reassignment and this would allow you to determine if they were hardware related and whether or not the computer should be repaired or retired rather than reissued again.