CCNA CMDB Questions

CMDB Data Manager provides automated lifecycle policies that can retire or archive CIs matching conditions such as prolonged 'In Maintenance' status without updates, removing manual intervention. This directly satisfies the requirement to automate hardware CI retirement after 180 days.

Dependency View renders the graphical relationship hierarchy directly from a CI record, mapping the Business Service to its underlying servers and downstream dependencies. This satisfies the requirement to visualise the service's composition without running reports or queries, showing parent-child relationships across configuration items in Microsoft Entra ID-integrated environments.

CMDB Data Manager applies configurable policies that archive CI records once they match age thresholds and lifecycle states, removing stale entries from active views while preserving them for reference. This directly satisfies the requirement to clear old, unused CIs without permanent loss.

Compliance checking depends on whether a relationship must exist, so defining each rule as mandatory or optional determines which missing links are flagged. This satisfies the stem's requirement by letting the CMDB distinguish genuine gaps from legitimately absent associations.

This is correct because IRE matches CIs based on the values of the attributes in the identification rule. If SCCM and ServiceNow Discovery provide different values for serial_number, IRE will not consider them the same CI and will create separate records. The rule must include additional attributes or a different attribute that is consistent across sources to ensure proper matching.

Orphan CIs are flagged when class configuration rules expect relationships but none exist, directly satisfying the Correctness metric's requirement to detect missing mandatory connections. This differs from duplicate or stale CIs, which belong to other CMDB Health KPIs. The high orphan count therefore reflects absent expected relationships, not merely unlinked records.

Recommended fields is a metric in the Completeness pillar that checks whether CIs have values for attributes that are recommended but not mandatory. It helps improve data quality by encouraging the population of important fields. This metric is part of the Completeness pillar.

CMDB Data Manager allows administrators to create policies that automate the archiving and deletion of CIs based on conditions such as retirement date. It can be configured to remove CIs after a specified period, ensuring data hygiene. This is the correct tool for automating CI lifecycle management.

A custom identification rule for the Linux Server class with a serial_number entry ensures that IRE uses this attribute to match incoming CIs to existing ones, preventing duplicates. Because identification rules are class-specific and inherited by child classes, this approach applies only to Linux servers and their subclasses, satisfying the requirement.

Direct inserts skip the Identification and Reconciliation Engine entirely, so identification rules never match incoming records against existing CIs, and reconciliation rules never arbitrate conflicts. That produces duplicate server records and lets a source overwrite data it has no precedence for — precisely the governance the IRE enforces.

Relationship Types is the module where custom relationship types are defined, letting you specify the parent and child tables (hardware and business applications) and the relationship rules. This directly satisfies the requirement to create a new dependency type between those two tables, rather than merely viewing existing relationships.

Data Certification generates attestation tasks that route CI records to their owners for review and sign-off, directly satisfying the auditor's requirement to verify physical existence and accuracy. It is the only application purpose-built for scheduled certification of CMDB records.

Staleness, a Compliance metric, calculates the percentage of CIs not updated or verified within a defined threshold, here 90 days. It directly satisfies the stem's requirement to measure outdated, unverified CIs, unlike Correctness or Completeness, which assess data accuracy and mandatory field population respectively.

A reconciliation rule resolves conflicting values for the same attribute by ranking data sources, so the 'UI / Manual' source outranks the import for 'Assigned to'. This satisfies the constraint of preserving technician edits while the nightly import continues running, since precedence is applied per attribute rather than disabling the import entirely.

Serial numbers and MAC addresses are globally unique, stable hardware identifiers, so they reliably distinguish CIs of the same class. This satisfies the uniqueness constraint identification rules demand, preventing duplicate CI records that weaker attributes such as name or IP address would produce.

Class-specific identification rules normally live scattered across individual class records, so editing them one by one is slow and error-prone. CI Class Manager consolidates these rules into a single interface, letting administrators view and edit identification logic for any class centrally, satisfying the benefit of streamlined, consistent configuration.

The CMDB Dashboard module opens the comprehensive health dashboard tracking core CMDB health metrics.

IRE processing is not limited to scheduled or UI-driven runs; it can be triggered programmatically through the CMDBEngine API or by submitting JSON payloads. This satisfies the stem's requirement that IRE processing be invocable via script.

Data source precedence allows administrators to define the order of priority for discovery sources. When IRE processes data from multiple sources, it uses this precedence to determine which source's values take precedence during reconciliation. This directly addresses the requirement to have the highest priority source win in case of conflicts.

This is correct because IRE identification rules allow multiple entries with priority order to determine the primary and fallback identifiers. By placing serial_number at a higher priority and mac_address at a lower priority, IRE will attempt to match using serial_number first, and if absent, will use mac_address. This aligns with the requirement for a fallback identifier.