Ingest
About 19% of the CIS-DF exam — see all 5 domains.
Ingest is about getting data in cleanly without creating technical debt.
Choosing an ingestion method (a common scenario): match the source to the right mechanism.
- Discovery — agentless, schedule-based discovery of infrastructure via MID Server.
- Service Graph Connectors (SGC) — the preferred, IRE-aligned way to integrate third-party data sources (e.g., other CMDBs, cloud, SCCM). They use the IRE, support multisource, and minimize technical debt and upgrade risk.
- Agent Client Collector (ACC) — lightweight agent-based data collection.
- Manual / Import Sets — for non-discoverable CIs and attributes (e.g., business applications, contracts) that no tool can discover. Maintain these deliberately.
Minimize technical debt / ensure upgradeability: prefer out-of-the-box, IRE-driven integrations (Service Graph Connectors) over custom import scripts that bypass identification; don't write directly to CMDB tables. Certified, maintained connectors reduce custom upgrade/maintenance debt (no hand-written coalesce). (Note: connectors still require normal upgrade maintenance — this is not a guarantee that a data source is never skipped on a given upgrade path.)
Relationships can be populated automatically (by Discovery, Service Mapping, or connectors) or manually (by an admin defining a relationship between two CIs). Suggested/automated relationship features reduce manual effort.
Asset vs. CI alignment: an Asset (alm_asset / financial & contractual record) and a CI (cmdb_ci / operational record) are two tables kept in sync by the out-of-the-box "Update Asset fields on change" business rule (AssetAndCISynchronizer), which fires when a synchronized attribute changes. Key mapping: the asset's State/Substate ↔ the CI's Install Status (install_status), and for hardware the Hardware Status/Substatus (hardware_status) — Install Status and Hardware Status are independent of each other. Knowing which fields sync (and that asset and CI are distinct records, not one record) is testable.
Compliance identifiers: security and regulatory identifiers can be tracked against CSDM objects so the CMDB supports audit and compliance reporting.
Sample questions from this domain
Three of the 57 in this domain, with the reasoning. The full set is in the question bank.
A team needs to integrate CI data from a third-party system into the CMDB in an upgrade-safe way that uses the IRE and supports multisource. Which ingestion method best fits?
- A. A Service Graph Connector ✓
- B. A UI policy
- C. A custom script that writes directly to cmdb_ci tables
- D. A manual spreadsheet import each month
Why: Service Graph Connectors are the preferred integration method: they route data through the IRE, support multisource CMDB, and are upgrade-safe, minimizing technical debt. Writing directly to CMDB tables bypasses the IRE and creates duplicates and upgrade risk.
A business application cannot be detected by any discovery tool. What is the appropriate way to get it and maintain it in the CMDB?
- A. Wait for Discovery to eventually find it
- B. Populate and maintain it as a manual (non-discoverable) CI ✓
- C. Delete the class so it doesn't show as missing
- D. Mark it as a duplicate
Why: Non-discoverable CIs (such as business applications or contracts) are created and maintained manually — for example via import or direct entry — and governed deliberately, since no discovery tool can populate them.
Which statement best describes the relationship between an Asset record and its corresponding CI record?
- A. Assets are stored on cmdb_ci and CIs on alm_asset
- B. They are completely unrelated records
- C. They are two synchronized views of the same item, with certain fields kept in sync ✓
- D. The CI is automatically deleted when the asset is retired
Why: An Asset (financial/contractual, alm_asset) and a CI (operational, cmdb_ci) represent the same physical item from two perspectives and are synchronized, with specific fields (e.g., lifecycle/install status) kept in sync between them.