When working with Asset management there are occassions where there is incorrect or missing data within some of the asset summary fields such as the system manufacturer or model. This becomes especially problematic depending on the reports your asset management team uses to keep track of hardware in your environment.
It may be that your manufacturer is missing from some of your assets. In this case you can use the built in Dell hardware collections or create your own Dell collection to update the manufacturer to Dell for all your Dell workstations. Using the bsaic inventory you should be able to create collections for IBM, Lenovo, HP, etc to update the manufacturer information for all of your systems. In order to do this from the 6.5 console go to View > Configuration > Solution Settings > Connectors > CMDB Rules and create a new CMDB rule from scratch or clone one of the sample CMDB rules already there. Step 1, determine what resources you are going to focus on.
In this case we are going to work off of collections. Target using: Collection, Select collection: <collection name>. Step 2 add data class via the selector under CMDB Data Classes. The Serial Number data class includes the manufacturer and model of a given system. Once the data class is selected select <Value> under the source column and enter in the specific value you would like to assign to the Manufacturer field, leaving model blank unless you are creating this rule for a specific model. If you had a collection of Dell Latitude D630's you could enter a value for model to correspond to that. Finally, test the rule to verify the potential modifications and schedule if necessary or just Run Now.
Keywords: CMBD Rule, Manufacturer, connector solution, Serial Number, inventory, asset management, data classes