Importing Discovered Assets

This article describes a method to distinguish between different templates created for the various third party asset inventory tools and provides guidelines for identifying the source or origin of discovery data imported using the ServiceAide Asset Converter. Examples of the various sources or origins might include Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003, Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2007, Altiris Inventory Solution, BMC Configuration Management (formerly Marimba), LANDesk Inventory Manager, Tivoli Asset Management or BDNA Insight. Within various tools, there is often more than one method used for software inventory. An example is Microsoft SCCM Add/Remove Programs or Asset Intelligence.

The source or origin of discovered assets is tracked by the ServiceAide ITCM/SCM Content Team and is also displayed in ServiceAide IT Client Manager and in ServiceAide Software Compliance Manager. Further, additional planned functionality in SwCM depends on the source or origin of asset inventory data. It is also important to identify the source of inventory data in a consistent manner.

These guidelines will also improve the quality and transparency of our integrations and the custom solutions/reports that we provide to our customers.

Identifying the Template

After you have built your template and you know that it works, you should add a number of identifications into the template to tell them apart.

Origin and Trust Level

Origin is the official method to distinguish discovery data sources. As Origin is a free text field, it is important that you choose the right Origin. The Origin value should be long enough to provide a clear indication of the source (so that the reader can easily discern the source), but should be kept as short as possible so that it can be displayed on screen without requiring too much real estate. As an example, if you build a template for the current version of the third party inventory tool, uses a single inventory method; you should just use the name (i.e. “Altiris”). If the tool employs more than one inventory method, you should also indicate the source on the Template that deviate from the standard information that users use (i.e. “Altiris Add/Remove”).

You should not include the version number of the inventory tool in the Origin UNLESS the data source has changed significantly from one version of the tool to the next (i.e. Zenworks for Desktop 7.x and the current version of Zenworks Asset Management 10 use two different database schemas and modules so the inventory data will be different). Since the first template was written for 10 and was called “Zenworks” you will need to call the origin “Zenworks 7” if you build a template for the older version. Please make the values simple. Only use major versions IF a version is needed at all. In most cases a version is not needed (i.e. The database schema for Unicenter DSM r11 and ITCM r12 did not changed, so no version is needed), as an example have is the Origin value for the DSM/ITCM template called “ITCM – AC”, to show that it came through the Asset Converter.

Do not change the Origin if you make small tweaks to the Template, if you need to tell the templates apart just add it in the Additional Inventory Comment described bellow (see Asset Converter Inventory Section)

If you are creating a template that you think can be shared, please share your Origin value with Service Management Swat so we can get it registered and posted (this document will be updated with the location of the registered Original values). This will help to ensure that Original values remain unique and consistent and to make the ServiceAide ITCM/SCM Content Team aware of new sources.

The trust level can be from 1-5 please select a appropriate level. 4 should be used for 3^rd party inventory tools. 5 should only be used for ITCM Agent data.

Asset Registration

When writing asset converter templates, it is extremely important to format the identifiers in the <General> section. So that, assets get registered correctly and can co-exist with other MDB based applications. While most of the fields only have one common format e.g. IP address is dot (.) delimited, the MAC Address has many delimiters. ITCM prefers it either without delimiters (aabbccddeeff) or with Colon (:) (aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff). If your source inventory base is using another delimiter, you can use SQL to change the delimiter as an example. You can add a SQL Replace command to replace the delimiter with a ‘nothing’ or colon.

Comments

We recommend that you add a “Comments” section at the top of the template between the <xml> and <asset-converter> tags, the comment section is not used by the actual Asset Converter, but it is a good way to inform users about what the template does and specific things to watch out for.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!--

Asset Converter Mapping Template for Microsoft SCCM 2007 an on.

(Based on the OOTB Provided SMS template sample)

This Mapping template for MS-SCCM 2007. The big difference from the standard product "Asset Converter for Microsoft SMS" is that the Software Inventory is read from the Asset Intelligence data area

Version : 0.9.1

Author : Kim Rasmussen (RASKI02) CA-Swat

Date : 20-aug-2009

Tested on : SCCM 2007 SP1 (4.00.6221.1000)

History : 0.9.0 : First version

0.9.1 : (RASKI02) Added CPU Count

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<asset-converter>