We're removing parts of the asset tracking, which had fallen in to disuse and lack of maintenance. Specifically, we're removing the parts of the device management tool that allowed you to register products and product orders, and to register serial numbers of on-the-shelf devices.
Thanks for the clarification.
After the changes, what's left will only register your devices when they've been encountered in operation (i.e. serial number pulled via SNMP). When the device is taken out of operation and placed on a shelf, NAV will still know, as it keeps a record of all serial numbers that have been seen.
We could still use NAV, but would have to temporarily connect all switches to the network as they arrive in order to let NAV see them. I guess this is possible, but it would be preferable to me to be able to fool NAV that it had seen the switch without the pain of booting/configuring it. This could be done with a small change to the Seed database/IP Devices/Add screen perhaps, rather than maintaining the asset management tools?
I don't think NAV ever had any user interface to list devices that are on the shelf, even though the data is in the database. You can view the operational history of any device by searching for its serial number, though.
A proper report listing on-the-shelf devices might be very useful to some, including you, perhaps?
It certainly would.
Many thanks
David