Managing Configuration Items › CI Reconciliation › Identify and Resolve Ambiguous CIs

Identify and Resolve Ambiguous CIs

We recommend managing ambiguity on a CI by CI basis. In each case, the Configuration Administrator must detect when ambiguity exists and determine the optimal approach. CA Service Desk Manager takes a broad approach to identify and manage ambiguous CIs that are already in the CMDB.

The ambiguity index is an operational measure of the potential nonuniqueness of a configuration item (CI) or a CI transaction item, based on its identifying attributes. The ambiguity index measures the probability of one or more CIs representing the same real business object, or the probability that a CI transaction has more than one possible target CI.

Use the following process to identify and resolve ambiguous CIs:

1. Identify ambiguous CIs.
   • Calculate the ambiguity index for all CIs
   • Review the list of ambiguous CIs from the Scoreboard
2. Determine if the identifying attributes for each CI are valid.
3. Resolve the ambiguous CI with one of the following actions:
   • Modify the identifying attributes
   • Exclude a CI from ambiguity management
   • Reject a CI Update by inactivating the CI
   • Supersede a CI