Computer's Manufacturer, Model, Serial Number or System Number are incorrect or missing

Products

IT Management Suite Asset Management Suite Asset Management Solution

Issue/Introduction

When viewing a computer to check its Manufacturer, Model, Serial Number or System Number, it is noticed that one or more of these values are now incorrect. For example, while editing a computer (which displays CMDB Solution data classes), its Manufacturer and Model appear to be from Dell:

However, when the computer is viewed in Resource Manager's Home page in the Hardware section (which displays Inventory Solution data classes), its Manufacturer and Model appear from to be from HP:

Or, any of these, when checked, no longer have expected values at all.

Environment

ITMS 8.x

Resolution

Review the following information to determine what the issue and solution are.

Issue: Hardware, such as a motherboard, was replaced on the original computer. Inventory Solution has updated its hardware data classes via a Hardware policy. However, older CMDB data classes still show the older hardware values.
Solution: The CMDB task Inventory to Asset Synchronization would normally be used to copy Inventory Solution's Manufacturer, Model, Serial Number, and System Number to CMDB Solution's counterpart data classes. However, if CMDB's counterpart data classes have any non-empty values, the task will not overwrite the old values with the new values from the updated hardware from Inventory Solution. In this case, the customer must find a way to clear out the CMDB Solution's counterpart data classes so that the Inventory to Asset Synchronization can be used to repopulate its data classes from the updated Inventory Solution's data classes.

Issue: A computer has been reimaged, its name reused by a different computer or images with the Symantec Management Agent that have an existing GUID are resulting in Inventory Solution data being matched up against the older computer record, even if it was deleted in Altiris. This can result in duplicate IP addresses or MAC addresses, among other duplicate issues. This may have come about by deploying an image such as from Deployment Solution or by a virtual machine set to use a specific MAC address, for example.
Solution: Altiris doesn't support reusing computers or their names as this can result in duplicate or shared GUIDs and/or corrupted inventory and asset data. Information about this can be found here:

Why am I unable to edit the name of certain computer resources?
https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article?articleId=181061

It is also not recommended to deploy images with the Symantec Management Agent that already has an existing GUID. These processes must be carefully implemented therefore to avoid having records merged and Inventory Solution data going to older records by accident. Ensure that duplicate and shared GUIDs do not exist to help avoid Inventory Solution data corruption and mismatches. If this has already occurred, there may be no method to recover the lost overwritten data. The customer's best recommendation then is to delete the computer in Altiris, then let it check back in from its Symantec Management Agent and then lastly run a new Inventory Solution Hardware policy to it. Additional information about troubleshooting duplicate and shared GUIDs can be found in the following article:

Issues occur when using duplicate computer names and/or GUIDs
https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article?articleId=158290

Issue: CMDB data has been imported in via Data Connector, Barcode or manually entered into computers. When the Inventory to Asset Synchronization runs, it fails to copy over Inventory Solution's counterpart data.
Solution: As mentioned above, if CMDB's data classes already contain values, the sync will not overwrite these. If these values are incorrect, the customer can change the method of import to reflect the correct values then reimport the computers. This will update them (not create duplicates) with their correct Manufacturer, Model, Serial Number or System Number, depending on which ones the customer imported previously.

Issue: Certain data that was thought to be present, no longer is. Specifically, computers were believed to have any combination of the Manufacturer, Model Serial Number or System Number. But when checked, these no longer have one or more of these fields populated.
Solution: The solution depends on how the data was entered and how the Altiris environment is configured to work. The following are some more common causes of this.

Is the server in a hierarchy and if so, is it using replication rules? Asset data (CMDB Solution, Asset Management Solution, Barcode Solution and Data Connector Solution) is not supported in a hierarchy (except on the parent server) and is not supported at all for replication rules. Remove the Asset product from the child if so, and discontinue trying to replication Asset data. Information on this can be found here:

Does Asset Management or CMDB Solutions support hierarchy and stand-alone replication rules?
https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article?articleId=179756
Manufacturer or Model. Were these to be brought in by the Inventory to Asset Synchronization task? Ensure that this is working.
For any data class discrepancy, any asset merge can potentially cause unexpected changes, as discussed above. Network Discovery in particular can cause this if computers are being discovered with it. More information about this can be found here:

How to troubleshoot duplicate assets
https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article?articleId=181883

Lastly, was the data really there or not? Sometimes data is thought to be "missing" but the wrong data is being looked for in the wrong area. Double check how this is being entered into Altiris and that none of the above were the cause.

Further Inventory to Asset Synchronization task troubleshooting

For the above scenarios that relate to the Inventory to Asset Synchronization, the bottom line is that Inventory Solution's Manufacturer, Model, Serial Number or System Number no longer are the same in CMDB's counterpart data classes. And, the Inventory to Asset Synchronization task is not designed to overwrite existing values. This leaves the customer with having to clear out CMDB's values before the task can then work successfully with the affected computers. The following tools are provided in this article to help facilitate this:

Review Resource Change History to help determine who/what changed/remove the data. This is found by right clicking on the computer > CMDB Functions > Resource Change History. If the data was really changed/there, but nothing is here for this, it's likely that the record was merged or was processed by a replication rule, as virtually all other changes, users and tasks, are documented here for CMDB data changes.
Run the attached SQL script "Find mismatching Inventory and CMDB data.txt" in the SQL Server Management Studio. This will list any discrepancies between the Inventory Solution Manufacturer, Model, Serial Number and System Number, and those of CMDB's counterpart data classes. If any computers are shown to have mismatching data classes, this may have been due to hardware being replaced (or one of the other issues, listed below).
Also attached are three custom CMDB rules. These will, respectively, clear out the CMDB data classes of Manufacturer/Model, Serial Number or System Number when ran, if Inventory Solution has values for its counterpart data classes. The Inventory to Asset Synchronization task can then be run to update CMDB's data classes with updated hardware data. To use these, import them into the Symantec Management Platform console and then run them as necessary.

Related Articles

Unable to find computer by searching for its Serial Number
https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article?articleId=161236

How does the CMDB task "Inventory to Asset Synchronization" work?
https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article?articleId=181655

Applies To:

Any version of Inventory Solution and CMDB Solution.