Change Title: Changes in Virtual Machine Normalization
Type: Class 2 Change Notification
What:
Virtual machines come into normalization via hardware pipeline (along with, e.g., computers). Currently, they are normalized to Manufacturer-level only (i.e., no Technopedia product and/or model is specified). The proposed change is to normalize virtual machines to Technopedia hardware products and/or models under Computers – Virtual Machines category/subcategory.
Why:
The proposed change is intended to address:
- the need to clearly identify whether virtual machines are normalized or not—if normalized, they need to be associated with Technopedia product and categorization
- the need to have a single view of all inventoried devices, regardless of physical or virtual
- the need to capture additional details provided by the discovery source on virtual machines
Current vs. Future Behavior:
| SCENARIO | CURRENT BEHAVIOR | FUTURE BEHAVIOR |
| Normalization | Normalized to manufacturer-only | Normalized to hardware product and/or model |
| Technopedia product/model | None | Representative hardware product and/or model for virtual machine |
| Technopedia category/subcategory | None | Computers – Virtual Machines |
| Virtual identifier | Virtual flag (‘Yes’) | Technopedia category/subcategory and Virtual flag (‘Yes’) |
Examples: Current Behavior on Virtual Machines
Examples: Future Behavior on Virtual Machines
Potential Impact
These changes will have impact on Data Platform, IT Visibility and/or Technopedia users:
- who rely on Is_Virtual flag to identify virtual machines
- who expect Technopedia manufacturer to be populated but Technopedia product and model to be empty for virtual machines
- who manage hardware products, as representative hardware products and/or models are being introduced with potentially blank values for hardware enrichment data (e.g., lifecycle dates, hardware specifications, etc.)
- who manage hardware taxonomy, as a new category/subcategory is being introduced: Computers – Virtual Machines
When:
The changes will be implemented in 2 (two) weeks
Additional Notes
Additional virtualization products and/or categorizations are proposed in the pipeline to distinguish desktop/server virtualization from other types of hardware virtualization:
- Storage virtualization: Storage – Virtual Storage
- Network virtualization: Network Equipment - Virtual Network
- Mainframe virtualization: Mainframe - Virtual Mainframe
We are doing additional discovery work to get some sample evidence / discovered data which may fall under one of those virtualization types. At the conclusion of this discovery, we will provide an update to this Content Release Notification with the estimate before making the actual changes.
