Free ServiceNow CIS-Discovery Practice Exam with Questions & Answers | Set: 4

In ServiceNow Discovery, when encountering the error 'Active, couldn't classify' during the discovery of a new SNMP network device, it typically indicates an issue with the classification process. Classification is a crucial initial step in the Discovery process, where the system determines the type of device it is interacting with. If an SNMP Classification rule for the new device type does not exist or needs updating, Discovery will be unable to classify and thus properly discover the device. Incorrect SNMP credentials or firewall issues usually result in different types of errors, such as authentication failures or no response from the device.

CI identifiers can be viewed under the CI record1. A CI identifier is a set of attributes that uniquely identify a CI of a specific class2. CI identifiers are used by the identification and reconciliation engine (IRE) to match incoming data with existing CIs in the CMDB3. CI identifiers can be viewed and edited in the CI record by clicking the Identification Information related link1.

When designing steps with operations requiring variables, it is best practice to query targets for variables1. This allows you to dynamically obtain the values of the variables from the target devices, rather than hard coding them or using scalar variables that may not reflect the current state of the target. Querying targets for variables also enables you to design for a dynamic environment, where the target configuration may change over time.

In ServiceNow Discovery, the reconciliation process is governed by precedence rules. These rules determine which data source’s information will be retained if there are conflicts when multiple sources discover the same CI. In this case, Altiris has a higher order of precedence (300) compared to ServiceNow (100), as seen in the “Data Source Precedents” section of the image. Therefore, if Altiris discovers ‘Windows2’ for the name attribute on the same CI after ServiceNow sets it to ‘Windows1’, the name will change to ‘Windows2’ due to Altiris’s higher precedence.

The Extension section in a horizontal pattern is executed after the Identification sections have completed and the CI has been identified. The Extension section allows adding additional attributes or relationships to the CI, or launching other patterns for further discovery12.

CMDB Health measures the quality of the data in the CMDB by testing it against predefined rules and metrics. One of the categories of these rules is Correctness, which tests the data against data integrity rules such as identification rules, orphan CI rules, and stale CI rules1. These rules help identify and flag the existing CMDB relationships that are not compliant with the suggested relationships2.

Duplicate relationships are those that have more than one relationship of the same type between the same two CIs3. For example, if a server CI has two relationships of type “Depends on” with the same network CI, it is a duplicate relationship.

Stale relationships are those that have not been updated for a specified period of time3. For example, if a server CI has a relationship of type “Runs on” with a virtual machine CI that has not been discovered for more than 60 days, it is a stale relationship.

Orphan relationships are those that are missing a defined relationship within the CMDB3. For example, if a server CI has no relationship of type “Depends on” with any network CI, it is an orphan relationship.