You can install Symantec Endpoint Protection for testing purposes without considering your company network architecture. You can install Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager with a few clients, and become familiar with the features and functions.

See Planning the installation.

When you are ready to install the production clients, you should plan your deployment based on your organizational structure and computing needs.

You identify the computers on which you plan to install the client. Symantec recommends that you install the client software on all unprotected computers, including the computer that runs Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager.

You decide how you want to manage the computers. In most cases, you manage the computers from the Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager console. These are called "managed computers". You might want to manually manage the portable computers that connect to the company network intermittently, such as mobile devices like notebook computers. A manually-managed computer is called an "unmanaged computer". Computers that never connect to the company network are by definition, unmanaged computers (because they never connect to the Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager) .

You organize the computers with similar security needs into groups. For example, you might organize the computers in the Payroll department into the Payroll group. The group structure that you define most likely matches the structure of your organization.

You create the groups by using Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager. Adjust the security policy settings for the groups that require additional restrictions.

You assign the computers to the groups. You can assign computers to groups during client installation. You can also assign computers to groups from the console after client installation.