Configuration Items — Anzen Docs

What are Configuration Items?

Configuration items (CIs) are the core records in your asset inventory. A CI represents any infrastructure asset your organisation manages — servers, network switches, firewalls, routers, cloud instances, storage arrays, or any other device or resource.

Key Information

Each configuration item captures the following details:

Name — a human-readable name for the asset (required).
Owning entity — the entity (department, team, or office) this asset belongs to (required).
Device type — an optional vendor and model classification.
IP address — IPv4 or IPv6 address.
Hostname — DNS hostname or fully qualified domain name.
MAC address — MAC address of the primary network interface.
Operating system — OS name and version.
Open ports — a list of discovered open ports, including port number, detected service, and banner information (populated by the network scanner).
Scanner source — identifies which scanner last updated this asset.
Description — free-text notes about the asset.

Manual and Scanner-Created Assets

Configuration items can be created in two ways:

Manual — create an asset through the management interface, filling in the details yourself.
Network scanner — Anzen's built-in scanner discovers devices on your network and automatically creates or updates assets. Scanner-created assets are tagged with the scan run that found them.

Open Ports

The open ports list is populated by the network scanner. Each entry contains a port number, the detected service name, and any banner information returned by the service. This data helps identify running services and potential security exposures without leaving Anzen.

Connections to Other Areas

Configuration items are connected to many parts of the platform:

Entity — every asset belongs to exactly one entity.
Device type — optional link to a vendor and model for classification.
Applications — assets can be linked to applications, showing which apps run on which infrastructure.
Business processes — assets can be linked to business processes, mapping infrastructure to workflows.
Tickets — incidents, problems, and changes can reference affected assets.
Controls — security controls can be linked to the assets they protect.

Archiving and Restoration

When you delete a configuration item, it is archived rather than permanently removed. This preserves historical references from tickets, controls, and audit logs. Archived assets can be restored at any time.