The CMDB identification and reconciliation functionality is supported by identification
rules, reconciliation rules, de-duplication tasks, and reclassification tasks.
Components of Identification and Reconciliation
- Identification
- Identification is the process of uniquely identifying CIs, to determine if the CI already
exists in the CMDB or if it is a newly discovered CI that must be added to the CMDB. The
process relies on identification rules.
- Reconciliation
- Reconciliation is the process of reconciling CIs and CI attributes by allowing only
designated authoritative data sources to write to the CMDB at the CI table and attribute
level. The CMDB is updated in real time as records are being processed. There is no staging
area to verify the reconciliation activities before they are committed. The process relies on
reconciliation rules.
- De-duplication tasks
- If the instance encounters duplicate CIs during the identification and reconciliation
process, it groups each set of duplicate CIs into a de-duplication task. Review the
information in these tasks to see how it was determined that these CIs are duplicates.
- Reclassification tasks
- During the CI identification process, a matched CI might need to be upgraded, downgraded,
or switched to another CI class. If automatic reclassification is disabled, then the system
generates a reclassification task. Review the information in these tasks, and decide whether a
manual reclassification of the CI is appropriate.
- API
- The
Identification and Reconciliation API is a centralized API that can be used with different
sources of data such as Discovery, Monitoring, or Import Sets. You can use it to enforce
identification and reconciliation before data is stored in the CMDB. Data sources do not
directly write to the CMDB. Instead, they call the API first to ensure that the data being
written does not introduce inconsistencies.
Predefined identification and reconciliation rules are included for tables that are in the
base instance. You can customize these rules for your organization. When a new table is created
in the CMDB, it derives identification and reconciliation rules from its parent table if these
rules exist. To apply identification and reconciliation rules to a new table, create the rules
either at the child level or at its parent level.
Process flow of Identification and Reconciliation
