Configuration
About 15% of the CIS-DF exam — see all 5 domains.
Configuration covers the technical building blocks of the CMDB.
CI Class Manager is the single place to manage the CMDB class hierarchy:
- View and edit the class hierarchy (parent/child classes extending cmdb_ci).
- Manage table, attributes, relationships, identification rules, reconciliation rules, and dependent relationships for each class in one UI.
- Use it to extend the model correctly rather than creating ad-hoc tables.
Identification and Reconciliation Engine (IRE) is the gatekeeper for all data entering the CMDB:
- Identification rules determine whether an incoming payload matches an existing CI (using identifier entries / criterion attributes, evaluated by priority) — preventing duplicates.
- Reconciliation rules decide which data source is authoritative for a given attribute, so a lower-priority source can't overwrite a higher-priority source's value (data source precedence).
- All standard ingestion (Discovery, Service Graph Connectors, etc.) should go through the IRE rather than writing directly to CMDB tables.
CMDB 360 / Multisource CMDB stores attribute values per data source and shows them side by side, with reconciliation deciding the displayed/authoritative value. Configure it when multiple sources report on the same CIs and you need to see and reconcile discrepancies.
Sample questions from this domain
Three of the 44 in this domain, with the reasoning. The full set is in the question bank.
An administrator needs to view and edit the CMDB class hierarchy, including each class's table, attributes, and identification rules, from a single interface. Which tool should they use?
- A. Service Catalog
- B. Form Designer
- C. Update Set Editor
- D. CI Class Manager ✓
Why: CI Class Manager is the centralized UI for managing CMDB classes — hierarchy, table, attributes, relationships, and identification/reconciliation rules. Form Designer only edits a single form layout; the others are unrelated to CMDB class management.
Two discovery sources report a different value for the same attribute on the same server CI. Which IRE capability determines which source's value is treated as authoritative?
- A. Coalesce fields
- B. Identification rules
- C. Reconciliation rules ✓
- D. User criteria
Why: Reconciliation rules define data source precedence — which source is authoritative for a given attribute — so a lower-priority source cannot overwrite a higher-priority value. Identification rules instead determine whether an incoming payload matches an existing CI.
What is the primary purpose of IRE identification rules?
- A. To decide which data source wins when attribute values conflict
- B. To schedule Discovery against a network range
- C. To match an incoming payload to an existing CI and prevent duplicate records ✓
- D. To define who can read CMDB records
Why: Identification rules use identifier/criterion attributes (evaluated by priority) to determine whether incoming data corresponds to an existing CI, preventing duplicate creation. Choosing the authoritative source is the job of reconciliation rules.