A globally unique device identification is created. Initially, for a device, polling is performed for information regarding certain hardware components, such as hard disks, network cards, sound cards, video cards, etc. A device identifier is assigned to the device, which in one embodiment, is based on the hardware component information. The device identifier and the current information regarding the hardware components of the system are stored in a repository. Periodically, a new poll is performed of the hardware components of the system, and the current hardware component information in the repository is updated. A device is identified by the identity or similarity of the hardware component information read from the device with the stored current hardware component information.