Assets and lifecycle
Asset identity that survives renames and re-images, hosts versus MDM devices, agent versus imported origin, the active/stale/retired lifecycle, the asset detail page, and the timeline of history events.
What an asset is
An asset in VerOps is a durable record of one physical or virtual machine. It is not a row keyed on a hostname — hostnames change, machines get re-imaged, and a spreadsheet's idea of a name rarely matches the agent's. Instead an asset is keyed on a stable machine identity: the operating system's machine ID (MachineGuid on Windows, /etc/machine-id on Linux) together with the DMI serial number, manufacturer and model reported by the hardware itself.
The practical consequence: rename a laptop, or rebuild it with the same hardware, and its history, tags, usage, licenses and financial record all stay attached. You get one asset, not two.
Hosts and devices
| Kind | Where it comes from | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Host | An agent (Scout or the Machine Agent inventory module), or an import | The main asset record. Workstations, laptops and servers, plus imported assets no agent can reach. |
| Device | MDM ingest | Tablets such as iPads, which cannot run a native agent. MDM-owned; imports never create or modify devices. |
Discovery and origin
Every asset carries an origin, shown as a status pill on the asset detail page:
- Agent — the asset was discovered because an agent enrolled and reported. This is the default.
- Imported — the asset was created from a CSV or API import and no agent has ever reported for it.
An imported asset is not a second-class record: it appears in the Hosts table, carries tags, financials, an asset tag and a custodian, and shows up in reports. If an agent is later installed on that machine, the two are merged into one asset rather than left as duplicates — see Asset import for exactly how the merge is matched and what survives it.
Lifecycle: active, stale, retired
| State | Meaning | How it is set |
|---|---|---|
| Active | The asset has reported recently and is considered in service. | Automatic, from agent reports. |
| Stale | Nothing has been heard from the asset for longer than the staleness window — the machine is off, offline, decommissioned without being retired, or its agent has stopped. | Automatic. A lifecycle sweep runs hourly and moves assets in and out of this state. |
| Retired | The asset is deliberately out of service. Retired assets are hidden from the Hosts table by default and excluded from license consumption. | Manual — Retire on the asset, reversible with Unretire. |
Turn on Show retired in the Hosts toolbar to bring retired assets back into view. Retiring is the correct way to remove a machine from your compliance position without destroying its history: a retired host stops counting toward per_device and per_core license consumption on the next recompute, while its purchase record, warranty and timeline remain intact.
Identity fields you own
Three fields on every asset are owned by you, never by an agent, and are the ones that connect VerOps to the rest of your asset process:
| Field | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Asset tag | Your physical inventory label. Unique per organization and case-insensitive — A1 and a1 are the same tag, and a second asset cannot claim it. |
| Custodian | Free text — the person or team accountable for the asset (distinct from whoever happens to be logged in). |
| Location label | Free text — building, floor, room, desk, rack. Independent of network-inferred presence. |
These are set by import or edited directly on the asset, and an agent report can never overwrite them. The asset tag leads the identity row on the asset detail page.
The asset detail page
Clicking any host opens its detail page, with the lifecycle, presence, agent, origin and update-posture pills in the header and the following tabs:
- Overview — identity, asset tag, custodian, location, key facts.
- Hardware — CPU, cores, memory, disks, GPU, BIOS, chassis, battery — and the Update posture card.
- Software — installed packages and the products this machine runs.
- Users — current and historical users, enriched with directory identity where available.
- Network & presence — interfaces, addresses, gateway, DNS, and the office/remote classification.
- Financials — purchase, depreciation, book value and warranty.
- History — the timeline.
The timeline
Every meaningful change to an asset is recorded as a timeline event, filterable by group. What you will see:
| Group | Events |
|---|---|
| Identity | Hostname changed · identity adopted · asset imported · asset import merged |
| Hardware | Hardware changed |
| Software | Software installed · software removed · license position changed · product merged |
| Users | User changed |
| Network | Network changed · presence changed |
| Patch | Update posture changed |
| Financial | Financials updated · warranty expiring |
| Lifecycle | Lifecycle changes, such as an asset being retired or brought back into service |
Events are deliberately transition-based rather than periodic. An asset that has been behind on updates for a month produces one posture event, not thirty; a warranty produces one warning at 90 days and one at 30, never a daily reminder. The timeline is meant to stay readable enough that a human actually reads it.
Note: Directory synchronization deliberately emits no timeline events — a sync touching every user would drown the feed. Its audit trail is the sync-job history on the Directory card instead.