Harware Assets Renamed Daily

Nick_Flint

We have the Cireson Asset Management configured to create new hardware computer assets from configuration data imported by a SCCM Connector. When a computer is redeployed the windows name of the device is changed to match the new deployment. In this case, we configured CAM to update the hardware asset record with the new windows device name. What we see happening on a daily basis is the Hardware Asset Display Name and Asset Name are alternately changes from the old name to the new name. 

Have we missed something in the CAM configuration or is there something else possibly going on here?

Nick_Flint

Thanks, @Adam_Dzyacky. That was part of the issue I'm seeing. Besides those objects, we have computer objects with matching Serial Number but Differing names. I had to add a second step to remove the serial number duplicates. I had one group with 41, I think those are the computer objects without a serial number and I wanted to ignore virtual machines since we don't create hardware asset records for virtual computers.

$scsmmgmtserver = "mgmtservername"

$deployedClass = get-scsmclass -name "Microsoft.SystemCenter.ConfigurationManager.DeployedComputer" -ComputerName $scsmmgmtserver

#First, remove duplicates by DisplayName

$allDeployed = get-scsmobject -Class $deployedClass -ComputerName $scsmmgmtserver | group-object $_.displayname | ?{$_.count -gt 1} | sort-object lastmodified -Descending

foreach ($deployedObject in $allDeployed)

{

    $deployedObject.Group | sort-object lastmodified -Descending | Select-Object -Skip 1 | foreach {remove-scsmobject $_ -ComputerName $scsmmgmtserver -Force}

}

#Second, remove duplicates by SerialNumber

$deployedClass = get-scsmclass -name "Microsoft.Windows.Computer$" -ComputerName $scsmmgmtserver

$allDeployed = get-scsmobject -Class $deployedClass -ComputerName $scsmmgmtserver | group-object -Property SerialNumber | ?{$_.count -eq 2 -AND $_.Name -notlike "VMware*"} | sort-object lastmodified -Descending | sort-object lastmodified -Descending

foreach ($deployedObject in $allDeployed)

{

    $deployedObject.Group | sort-object lastmodified -Descending | Select-Object -Skip 1 | foreach {remove-scsmobject $_ -ComputerName $scsmmgmtserver -Force}

}

Haseeb_Malik

Hi Guys, one of the tricks to avoiding this in the first place is the process your people are using to rename computers. Firstly the trick is to rename a computer rather than move to workgroup etc. or when you're imaging, don't allow the computer to be renamed during imaging phase otherwise a new computer account will be created in AD/SCCM, leading to a new Windows Computer CI being created in the CMDB.

You'll also need to ensure you have an AD Connector setup for computers so the SID is populated in the windows computer CI and the enable the 'Before creating, check for renamed computer' in AM settings. 

Adam_Dzyacky

It sounds like this -
https://community.cireson.com/discussion/comment/11905#Comment_11905

Matt_Medley

Nick_Flint said:

We have the Cireson Asset Management configured to create new hardware computer assets from configuration data imported by a SCCM Connector. When a computer is redeployed the windows name of the device is changed to match the new deployment. In this case, we configured CAM to update the hardware asset record with the new windows device name. What we see happening on a daily basis is the Hardware Asset Display Name and Asset Name are alternately changes from the old name to the new name. 

Have we missed something in the CAM configuration or is there something else possibly going on here?

Hey Nick, I wanted to check in and see how things are going with this. The solution Nick provided is a great resource to delete stale / duplicate SCCM data. If you're no longer seeing this issue, please let us know. 

Nick_Flint

Thanks, @Adam_Dzyacky. That was part of the issue I'm seeing. Besides those objects, we have computer objects with matching Serial Number but Differing names. I had to add a second step to remove the serial number duplicates. I had one group with 41, I think those are the computer objects without a serial number and I wanted to ignore virtual machines since we don't create hardware asset records for virtual computers.

$scsmmgmtserver = "mgmtservername"

$deployedClass = get-scsmclass -name "Microsoft.SystemCenter.ConfigurationManager.DeployedComputer" -ComputerName $scsmmgmtserver

#First, remove duplicates by DisplayName

$allDeployed = get-scsmobject -Class $deployedClass -ComputerName $scsmmgmtserver | group-object $_.displayname | ?{$_.count -gt 1} | sort-object lastmodified -Descending

foreach ($deployedObject in $allDeployed)

{

    $deployedObject.Group | sort-object lastmodified -Descending | Select-Object -Skip 1 | foreach {remove-scsmobject $_ -ComputerName $scsmmgmtserver -Force}

}

#Second, remove duplicates by SerialNumber

$deployedClass = get-scsmclass -name "Microsoft.Windows.Computer$" -ComputerName $scsmmgmtserver

$allDeployed = get-scsmobject -Class $deployedClass -ComputerName $scsmmgmtserver | group-object -Property SerialNumber | ?{$_.count -eq 2 -AND $_.Name -notlike "VMware*"} | sort-object lastmodified -Descending | sort-object lastmodified -Descending

foreach ($deployedObject in $allDeployed)

{

    $deployedObject.Group | sort-object lastmodified -Descending | Select-Object -Skip 1 | foreach {remove-scsmobject $_ -ComputerName $scsmmgmtserver -Force}

}

Adam_Dzyacky

Nice! Glad to help.

Matt_Medley

Glad we could get this one closed out. Thanks Adam and Nick!

Haseeb_Malik

Hi Guys, one of the tricks to avoiding this in the first place is the process your people are using to rename computers. Firstly the trick is to rename a computer rather than move to workgroup etc. or when you're imaging, don't allow the computer to be renamed during imaging phase otherwise a new computer account will be created in AD/SCCM, leading to a new Windows Computer CI being created in the CMDB.

You'll also need to ensure you have an AD Connector setup for computers so the SID is populated in the windows computer CI and the enable the 'Before creating, check for renamed computer' in AM settings.