Issue
Since the London release there is an option to remediate de-duplication tasks using out of the box remediation. This will remediate these tasks using the Identification and Reconciliation engine.
When using this, it deletes not only the duplicate CIs but the main CI that was selected.
This also does not happen with every single de-duplication tasks (If it happens with every single one, then it might not be the issue here)
Release
London and further, but could happen in earlier versions as well depending on how you remediate your de-duplication tasks.
Cause
Asset and CI both have cascade delete rule on each other. Deleting a CI deletes the corresponding asset, and deleting an asset deletes the corresponding CI.
In a scenario with two duplicates each pointing to the same asset record:
Ci Asset field on CI
X. A1
Y. A1
While the CI field on asset A1 is Y, in the remediator, if you pick X as main and opt to delete the rest, the remediator deletes Y, which in turn cascade deletes A1, which in turn cascade deletes X too.
The issue is being seen for de-dupe tasks where the same asset is referenced by multiple CIs and the CI referenced by the main is not selected as the main.
Resolution
1. If the user can identify such scenarios they will have to pick the CI as the main that is referenced by the asset. Again there might more variations to this scenario where i suspect this might not always work.
2. Alternatively, choose not to delete the CIs but mark them as retired/ change name / remove asset reference.
Related Links
We do not fault the tool for this issue. Having duplicate CIs referencing same asset records seems a deeper data issue than just duplicate CIs. If the same steps where done manually instead of the tool, we would see the same outcome.
