Best of way of handling reimaged devices without duplicating
Despite following the documentation and similar questions on this forum, I'm still having a problem with duplicate devices and assets being created when reimaging a PC. The device asset type has a Serial Number field added and mapped to the BIOS Serial Number device field. From the device screen I can see this asset field populated correctly.
If I shut down and reimage the PC with a new host name, it creates a new device AND a new asset, despite having the same serial number as the existing asset. I assume this is because the existing device was not deleted? Deleting the device is not desired because we lose the history with it. (What applications were installed, what services were running, etc). This information is preserved if I archive the asset, but there's no way to archive the device and leave the asset alone. What I'm ideally looking for is a way to have a unique asset for every serial number, and a device history for all the devices that were linked to the asset.
For example, I have an asset with the Serial Number DELLSN1. Initially I image it with the hostname OLDEMPLOYEE. When that employee is offboarded, I wipe and reimage the machine with the hostname NEWEMPLOYEE, but it creates a brand new asset with the same serial number as the old one.
Is there any way to accomplish this? If not, will deleting the device before I reimage it solve the problem of a new asset being created? And if so, can I at least see a history of all the device names the asset has ever had?
Answers (3)
In your imaging steps, are applying the KUID to the KACE Agent as a post installation task?
Comments:
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Yes, but there were 2 problems: the new asset and device are still created when the Agent is installed. The second problem is that the device starts reporting in under the old device name. The device and asset names are not updated to match the new hostname. - jlfrank 2 years ago
Right it's because the KUID is the key. In my experience, If you don't use the same KUID it will create a new asset each time, and if you're using a different name, it will also create a new device.
I feel that the best way to do what you want is reimage it while keeping the same name as before, then rename it post installation.
Top Answer
If you setup your Device Asset type so that the Inventory item links to the asset record on the serial number then even if the KUID is different, your SMA should work out that it should be connected and avoid duplicate assets, if it is not then I would class that as unexpected behaviour and you should log a support ticket to find out why it is no longer working!!
