Source of Name (Computer Name) of an Inventory Record

[lelfers]

Does anyone know where FNMS pulls the computer name for an inventory record?  Is it read from the bios of the computer?  We use the FNMS Inventory agent on devices as primary and SCCM as a secondary collection.  We are seeing an influx of computer names coming in lower case on inventory records but they are uppercase in Active Directory and on SCCM servers.  Just curious where the inventory record pulls the computer name from that it would be lowercase in some instances.

Thanks

[tjohnson1 · Accepted solution]

For Windows the agent uses the netbios name and for Unix it uses the output of the hostname command.

[lelfers]

Sorry I should have asked a follow up question.  Why does the same inventory record bounce between upper and lowercase?  Does it depend on the source of the inventory record?  I.E. SCCM vs FNMS agent?  It is odd that if using the netbios name it changes back and forth.  I attached an example.  It also changes the linked  computer asset record to lowercase when this occurs.  The team that supports the devices standard is uppercase computer name so it is a nuisance for them.  Thanks!

[tjohnson1]

As the device is linked to an asset, my guess would be that you have a business adapter that is updating the name of the asset to all caps (which also updates the inventory device name). Then when the import/reconcile runs the name is changed to lowercase to reflect what is coming from the inventory.

[ChrisG]

Another possibility may be that details of the device are being imported from multiple non-primary inventory sources which record the name with different capitalizations. The value from whichever source has the most recent inventory will be used each time the inventory import process runs.

There are probably other possibilities too - inventory device data can get updated in various ways, so you may need to chase down the exact data flows and processes used on your specific setup to get to the bottom of it. Looking at the timestamps of changes recorded in the history of records may give some insight to be able to relate changes back to particular processes that are running at the time.