Add reconcialiation rule to link asset with inventory device

[alexgravel]

Hi,

I was wondering if there was way to add (not replace) a reconciliation job to link device asset to inventory?

The way i understand it, now it relates asset with inventory using the serial number on the entries.

Although, in our configuration, to avoid some duplicates in the CMDB, some CIs had there serial "changed" to used host ID instead.

Since we are feeding the Asset part of flexera with our CMDB, I would like to make full use of the Asset life cycle that is managed in the CMDB in order to have our licence accounted for correctly.

Thanks for any insight you can give me on this. I am quite new in FNMS.

[ChrisG]

There's not an easy/trivial way to do it. It would probably be achievable using some kind of direct manipulation of data in the SQL Server compliance database.

With that said, the changes required to link an inventory device to an asset record are frankly somewhat complex and there are many nuances in the semantics of the data to get right - for example, in order to make a link you need to consider and have different behvaiors based on the status on computer records, possibly consider field values that may need to be sync'ed across the computer & asset record, and maybe other considerations.

Sorry there's not an easier answer, but I guess the take away message is to take care if you try to wade in.

[alexgravel]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for your reply!

I was looking in the community and came across this post.

https://community.flexera.com/t5/FlexNet-Manager-Forum/Asset-link-to-inventory-with-no-serial-number/td-p/101411

Would it be something like that in in order to match/link asset with inventory? (using hostid and serialnumber instead of name and shortdescription)

Else, would it be possible to link them using a business adapter?

Thanks

[ChrisG]

In reflection, I wonder if the business adapter data model may be able to be used to link assets to inventory device records. I'm not sure about that, but it would be something to explore.

The guidance in that thread you have found about updating the AssetID column in the ComplianceComputer view directly with a SQL query would be helpful as a starting point if you are seeking to link inventory device records to assets (i.e. linking in the opposite direction from what you were asking about - starting with asset records and linking them to inventory device records). However one thing that the response in that thread doesn't handle is cleaning up (unlinking or deleting) existing records in the ComplianceComputer view that may be linked to Asset records - that could lead to multiple ComplianceComputer records having the same AssetID, which may have unexpected consequences.