CI Lifecycle Management
How Parascope tracks configuration items from discovery through decommission and cleanup
Configuration Items in Parascope follow a defined lifecycle that tracks their journey from discovery through eventual cleanup. Understanding the lifecycle helps you distinguish between actively monitored infrastructure and stale or decommissioned assets.
Lifecycle States
| State | Meaning | Visual Indicator |
|---|---|---|
| Active | CI is being regularly discovered by a collector | Green badge |
| Inactive | CI has not been seen since the inactivity threshold | Amber badge |
| Archived | CI has been inactive long enough to be considered decommissioned | Gray badge |
| Deleted | CI has been permanently removed from the database | Not visible |
How Staleness Detection Works
Parascope tracks a last_seen timestamp for every CI, updated each time a collector observes it. A background lifecycle job runs periodically and compares last_seen against configurable thresholds:
- Active to Inactive: When
now - last_seenexceeds the inactivity threshold (default: 24 hours) - Inactive to Archived: When a CI has been inactive longer than the archival threshold
- Archived to Deleted: The cleanup job permanently removes archived CIs past the retention period
CIs can return to Active at any time if a collector rediscovers them — even from the Archived state.
Lifecycle Settings
Access lifecycle configuration at Settings, then Lifecycle.
Configuration Tab
| Setting | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Inactivity threshold | How long before an active CI becomes inactive | 24 hours |
| Archival threshold | How long an inactive CI waits before archival | Configurable |
| Retention period | How long archived CIs are kept before deletion | Configurable |
| Job interval | How often the lifecycle job runs | Configurable |
Overview Tab
Shows current lifecycle statistics:
- Count of CIs in each state (Active, Inactive, Archived)
- Percentage breakdowns
- Click counts to navigate to filtered CI lists
Operations Tab
Manual lifecycle operations for administrators:
| Operation | Description |
|---|---|
| Transition Stale | Move CIs that exceed the inactivity threshold to Inactive |
| Cleanup Archived | Permanently delete archived CIs past the retention period |
| Reconcile | Re-evaluate all CI states against current thresholds |
Each operation supports dry-run mode — preview what would change without actually making modifications. Always use dry-run first to verify the impact.
Filtering by Lifecycle State
In the CI list, use the status filter to view CIs by lifecycle state:
status:eq:active # Only active CIs
status:eq:inactive # Only inactive CIs
status:eq:archived # Only archived CIsThe CI list also has a toggle to show or hide inactive and archived CIs. By default, only active CIs are shown.
Why Lifecycle Matters
Accurate Inventory
Without lifecycle management, your CMDB would accumulate stale entries for every CI that was ever discovered — VMs that were deleted, pods that were rescheduled, containers that were stopped. The lifecycle ensures your CI count reflects reality.
Change History Preservation
When a CI transitions to Inactive or Archived, its change history is preserved. You can still investigate what happened to decommissioned infrastructure. Only permanent deletion removes the history.
Capacity Planning
The ratio of active to inactive CIs can indicate infrastructure churn. A high inactive count might suggest VMs being provisioned and abandoned, or collectors that need reconfiguration.
Related Documentation
- Dashboard — System health widget shows lifecycle breakdown
- Searching and Filtering CIs — Filtering by lifecycle state
- CI Details — Status indicator on CI detail pages
Relationships Explorer
Explore CI relationships as an interactive graph with configurable depth, multiple layout algorithms, and visual encoding of types, sources, and connection patterns
ParaQL Query Language
An overview of ParaQL, Parascope's SQL-like query language for exploring your entire infrastructure from a single console