New Terms in Notification Server 7

This article comes from several presentations to user groups and other meetings. The following is a list of terms and items that you will need to know to be successful in your switch to Notification Server 7. These terms are part of the core of NS and work in all suites/products that utilize the Symantec Management Platform.

Table of Contents

• Symantec Management Platform
• Site Server
  • Task Server Service
  • Package Server Service
  • Out-of-Band Management Service
• Organizational Unit
• Filter
• Target
• Hierarchy
• Maintenance Window
• Summary

The following terms are defined: Site Server, Organizational Unit, Filter, Target, Hierarchy, and Maintenance Window.

Symantec Management Platform

The Symantec Management Platform is the core of Notification Server. All other solutions provided by Symantec/Altiris are built around this core. Also the Dell Client Management Suite and other third-party applications leverage the Platform.

Site Server

In Notification Server 6, there were two ways to ease the traffic on the Notification Server and also ease traffic across the WAN, a Task Server and a Package Server. These two items still exist in Notification Server 7, but they are under the title of Site Server.

So what is a site server? A site server is a Windows 2003 Server with the Altiris Agent installed on it along with one or all of the following services installed: Task Server Service, Out-of-Band Management Service, and Package Server Service. As soon as I add one of those services to my managed computer it becomes a Site Server.

The best practice for dealing with sites is to have them assigned and created in Active Directory. Once those sites and subnets are imported, your Site Severs and managed computers will be assigned automatically.

The following is a screenshot of the Site Management page in Notification Server 7.

Click to view.

Task Server Service

Task Server was an add-on to Notification Server 6 however it since the Core worked outside of Notification server there was not the need for a lot of implementation of this product. In Notification Server 7, the Task Server is core to Notification Server. Task Server provides real time functionality to the Notification Server, bringing in some of the functions of Deployment Server to NS.

The Task Server Service offloads some of the processing of these real time tasks to the Notification Server. Upon installation of the NS Core there will be a task server installed on the NS which can handle 500 clients, while the remote Site Servers with the Task Server Service running can handle up to 5,000 nodes.

Package Server Service

The Package Server Service runs and operates similar to the Package Server in Notification Server 6. A package server will have the package server service running along with the Altiris Agent. Once a Software Delivery Policy has been created in NS7, then the package will be downloaded to the assigned package servers. Then the managed computers will download the new software packages from the local Site Server.

Assign these based on Sites and Subnets to best manage the load on the Notification Server.

Out-of-Band Management Service

The Out-Of-Band Management Service is for working with Intel vPRO enabled and activated computers. This offloads some of the work done through Real Time System Manager and the Out-of-Band Management Tasks to a local Site Server. When the Symantec Management Platform is installed, the Notification Server is also running the Out-of-Band Management Service.

Organizational Unit

An Organizational Unit is a way of organizing resources by business unit, location, Active Directory Group or any other way. All resources are added by default to the Default Organizational Group, however through an Automation Policy we can move these resources to the correct group and unit. A resource is anything in the Console such as a User, Computer, Network Device, or even a Package.

Once we have create an Organizational Group, we create an Organizational Unit as a child of the Organizational Group. A computer can belong to multiple groups, but only one unit.

Security can also be applied at the Organizational Group level allowing for the creation of local or restricted admins. In NS6, in order to duplicate this we had to create Secured Collections which were cumbersome to manage and control. Organizational Units are much more flexible then Secured Collections and easier to custom.

The following screenshot is of a sample Organizational Unit

Click to view.

Filter

A filter replaces the Notification Server 6 collection. A filter is a much more narrow usage then a collection was. The goal is to be able to use filters over and over through different usages. A filter could be something such as All Windows XP computers or All Computers with 2GB of RAM. You would then combine the filters together when creating a target (the following term).

One big change in working with policies and tasks is they use the premise of All Computers except those not in FILTER X. So in order to apply a task or policy to just my Windows XP computers, I would start with the All Computers filter and then apply the filter All Windows XP Computers to exclude all Computers not in the All Windows XP Computers.

Target

A target is built of a combination of a filter or filters and an organizational group. Back to the previous example I could further limit the computers the policy applies to by adding in the organizational unit Training.

Tasks and policies are applied to targets. When applying to a task you can create a quick target which is a onetime target, or you can reuse targets created from other parts of the system.

Hierarchy

For a long time Altiris has not had a true hierarchal system. Policies and security did not flow down, only resources could be forwarded up to the Central Reporting NS or Asset Server. In NS7 we have the ability to create a hierarchy. This means you can have true parent -> child relationships with policies and security flowing from the central notification server down to the children.

Hierarchy is different from replication. Replication resembles Inventory Forwarding in NS6.

The following screenshot is an example of setting up a hierarchy.

Click to view.

Maintenance Window

A Maintenance Window is the time for software delivery jobs and patch management jobs to run. This should be one of the first things that is setup in NS7. The NS Agent will download the software depending on the schedule created in the task. A maintenance window can be overridden in the task or policy. Maintenance Windows are applied to targets (combination of filter + organizational unit).

Summary

I hope this document is successful in defining some of the new terms that are used in Notification Server 7. Keeping these terms straight will greatly help you out in your implementation of this new product.