CA Service Management

  • 1.  Duplicate assets and the Registration Service in ITAM

    Posted Oct 02, 2017 11:04 AM

    HI all,

    I have a question about the ITAM/APM Registration Service and what it actually does.

     

    We got APM/ITAM 12.9.04.
    We are getting some duplicate assets listed in the Registration Service log file (ITAMRegSVC.log) [1]. We can identify them using the method in TEC1359234 [2]. We have the default configuration in APM for the CORA Configuration Settings, so we use the Registration Service (TEC1007672 [3]):
    (Common) Enable CORA: False
    (Common) Enable CORA Id Generation: True
    (Registration Service) Enable Cora: True
    (Registration Service) Enable CORA Id Generation: False

    CORA settings in APM

     

    If we create two assets with the same values (or no value) for all the CORA attributes:

    • Asset Name (ca_owned_resource.resource_name)
    • Serial Number (ca_owned_resource.serial_number)
    • Alt Asset ID (ca_owned_resource.resource_tag)
    • Host Name (ca_owned_resource.host_name)
    • MAC Address (ca_owned_resource.mac_address)
    • DNS Name (ca_owned_resource.dns_name)

    both assets appear in APM and the duplicate asset UUID shows up in the Registration Service log file (ITAMRegSVC.log).  If we in APM change one of the assets' CORA fields to a unique value, the duplicate is removed from the Registration Service log file. This is all as expected. 

     

    From TEC1131899 [3]: "When performing large data loads, or when integrated with SAM, using the registration service will add the assets and register them at a later time, in the background. (...) With the registration service method, duplicate assets may enter into the system, through manual data entry or the data importer.  This is fine, as the registration service will log the duplicate asset(s) and they will remain unregistered. You can review the registration service logs to identify the duplicate assets that have not been registered, then make corrections to the assets to provide uniqueness so they will register."

     

    Questions:
    1) There seems to be two separate stages when a new asset is created in APM:
       a) Add the asset to APM / ca_owned_resource and usp_owned_resource tables

       b) Register the asset

    Do I understand this correctly and if so, what exactly happens in each of the two stages?

     

    2) What are the consequences if we do not resolve the duplicate assets and leave them as they are? What does it mean that the duplicates are not registered?

    As far as I can see the duplicate assets exist in APM and the ca_owned_resource and usp_owned_resource tables and seem to behave normally. So does it matter that there are duplicates?

     

     

    Best regards,

    Heikki Ikonen

    Netgain

    ===========================================================

    [1] =  "ERROR CA.Applications.RegistrationService.CORAProcessor - Duplicate asset found in CORA for: 884A2848A6654D459BC7827EEC90DFF4."

     

    [2] = Registration Service log reports "Duplicate asset found in CORA" - How to troubleshoot this?

    https://support.ca.com/us/knowledge-base-articles.TEC1359234.html 

     

    [3] = Function to determine whether the asset is a unique or not:

    https://support.ca.com/us/knowledge-base-articles.TEC1007672.html 

     

    [4] = Differences between using the Registration Service vs. real time CORA settings (TEC1131899):

    https://support.ca.com/us/knowledge-base-articles.tec1131899.html



  • 2.  Re: Duplicate assets and the Registration Service in ITAM

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted Oct 02, 2017 02:27 PM

    Heikki,

    You are correct about the two stages adding an asset.
    If you add an asset manually in IT Asset Manager, the information is stored in the ca_owned_resource table.
    When the asset is registered it also gets added to the ca_asset table. These assets are registered with Cora and will be unique.

    If you do not resolve duplicates, your data integrity may be a concern.
    If assets are being entered through different channels, or in inconsistent ways, you may end up with assets that are entered multiple times.

     

    Thank you,
    Doug Hendricks
    CA Technologies
    Principal Support Engineer
    Technical Support



  • 3.  Re: Duplicate assets and the Registration Service in ITAM

    Posted Oct 06, 2017 07:33 AM

    Hi Heikki,

     

    In order to avoid these duplicates from being created in the first place, you need to set:

     

    (Common) Enable CORA: True

     

    Kind Regards,

    Brian



  • 4.  Re: Duplicate assets and the Registration Service in ITAM

    Posted Oct 09, 2017 02:22 PM

    Hi Heikki,

     

    We do recommend using the registration service.  Real time CORA should NOT be used if you are importing large amounts of data.   The registration service will call CORA at a later time, and, as Doug mentioned, it will register the asset or mark it as a duplicate and register it later once the duplicate data has been corrected. 

     

    If you leave duplicate assets in your system, then you may not be able to update them using the data importer.

    For example, if you have more than 1 asset with the same serial number, and you try to use serial number as the primary unique identifier, then the import will fail, as it cannot determine the unique asset to update. 

     

    Hope this helps, 

    Gale Bacon

    CA Technologies