Discovery data records for SMS 2003 clients may be discarded if the records have already been discovered by a secondary site in an earlier time zone

Discovery data records (DDR) for Microsoft Systems Management Server(SMS) 2003 clients may be discarded if the records have already been discovered by a secondary site in an earlier time zone.

For example, assume that a primary SMS site is based in Europe. Secondary SMS sites are located in Asia. At 11 A.M., a DDR is created for a client in Asia. The DDR is processed by its local secondary SMS site and then passed up to the primary SMS site in Europe. When the primary SMS site in Europe runs system discovery at 10 A.M., the primary site identifies the clients in Asia and creates a new DDR. When the Discovery Data Manager at the primary site receives the new DDR, the Discovery Data Manager sees the discovery time of 10 A.M. The Discovery Data Manager concludes that the DDR is older than the 11 A.M. discovery time and discards the DDR.

This problem occurs because the Heartbeat DDR is considered newer than the Active Directory System Group DDR.

Service pack information

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Systems Management Server 2003. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: A supported hotfix is available from Microsoft. However, this hotfix is intended to correct only the problem that is described in this article. Apply this hotfix only to systems that are experiencing this specific problem. This hotfix might receive additional testing. Therefore, if you are not severely affected by this problem, we recommend that you wait for the next software update that contains this hotfix.

If the hotfix is available for download, there is a "Hotfix download available" section at the top of this Knowledge Base article. If this section does not appear, contact Microsoft Customer Service and Support to obtain the hotfix.

Note If additional issues occur or if any troubleshooting is required, you might have to create a separate service request. The usual support costs will apply to additional support questions and issues that do not qualify for this specific hotfix. For a complete list of Microsoft Customer Service and Support telephone numbers or to create a separate service request, visit the following Microsoft Web site: Note The "Hotfix download available" form displays the languages for which the hotfix is available. If you do not see your language, it is because a hotfix is not available for that language.

The English version of this hotfix has the file attributes (or later file attributes) that are listed in the following table. The dates and times for these files are listed in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). When you view the file information, it is converted to local time. To find the difference between UTC and local time, use the Time Zone tab in the Date and Time tool in Control Panel.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section. This problem was first corrected in Systems Management Server 2003 Service Pack 2.

For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: