Detecting duplicate inventory records

Discovery Services performs network scans that gather data about SNMP-enabled devices for which Management Suite has no agent, such as printers, switches, and routers. In the scan, the key used to determine uniqueness is the IP address that SNMP responds on.

For most of these devices, even ones with more than one IP address, SNMP usually responds on the administrative address. For other devices with multiple IP addresses, such as some Cisco switches, SNMP responds on multiple addresses. To prevent duplicate records from being created for these devices, Discovery Services uses duplicate-detection rules to check any values returned in the scan against existing records. For Cisco switches, the serial number is checked to see if a switch with that same serial number already exists in the database. If it does, the scan data is then merged into the existing record.

By default, Discovery Services installs with a Cisco Serial Number duplicate-detection rule already configured. To configure other, similar rules, see the following procedure.

  1. On the Discovery Services toolbar, click the Settings icon.
  2. Click the Duplicates tab.
  3. If you've already created a duplicate-detection rule that would work here, click the Import button and follow the prompts. To create a new rule, click the Add button and enter a name for the rule.
  4. Click the Add button to add an attribute to search for in the scan file.
  5. Click the ellipsis (...) button to search for an attribute in the database. Normally, SNMP scan files return only Device.SNMP Entries records. In most cases, you'll select the Device.SNMP Entries.Value attribute.
  6. If you selected a one-to-many attribute, which Device.SNMP Entries is, use the text box to enter another attribute to use as the key field. For example, you might want to use Device.SNMP.Entries.OID as a key.
  7. In the where value box, select LIKE if you're looking for more than one attribute; otherwise, select = as an operator.
  8. Enter the value you're looking for next to the operator.
  9. For How many to match, select All or At least. If you selected At least, enter the number that should match.
  10. Click the Done button, then click Done again.
  11. Click the OK button. Discovery Services will use all listed rules to check values returned in a scan against existing database records.