Endpoint Protection Small Business Edition

We are planning to move SEP to another machine. Browsing the Connect forum I had already found an article containing step by step explanations to perform such a move.

However, using the replication method — which is stated to be the faster solution — I could not locate the Install additional site option in the Management Server Configuration Wizard as stated in the article. The article does mention it to be a solution for the Endpoint Protection 11.0 release. So I guess Symantec has revoked this option from this newer release, or haven't they?

We were told that Symantec's Endpoint Protection would be the best choice considering its alleged low system resource usage. We tested the 11.0 release and initially were quite pleased with it. At time of purchase SEP 12.0 had just been released and considering some forum posts, relating to better use of system resources, we had ordered this version. It was later found out that SEP 12.0 was actually not the follow-up to SEP 11.0, which I think is quite misleading.

Not only has 12.0 been bereft from the option to disallow users to disable network protection, it really does consume a lot of system resources. Therefor whe want to move it to a different machine so that it will use less resources from the main file-server.

Could anybody help me with this?

Kind regards,

Johan

This link to a post created some time ago might clarify the reason for the aforementioned move. As it stands I might consider combining the move to another machine with upgrading to SEP 12.1.

However, it would be helpful if it could be confirmed that the 12.1 does take better care of system memory and/or has other improvements (this article even talks about increased requirements??!!). I do not want to upgrade to another version if we might yet again loose some feature we have been using up until now or won't benefit from increased performance.

I also find the implementation of this upgrade quite a hefty procedure. It would really be helpfull if such steps would be included in the actual upgrade process using screens/questions to perform them on the go.

Johan

Hi,

Let me confirm that you are doing upgrade from SBE 12.0 to SBE 12.1 ?

If you wish can upgrade from Small Business Edition to Enterprise Edition, consult your partner to know more on same.

Small Business Edition is designed upto 100 computers & that's the reason it has less features compare to Enterprise Edition

I have tried to list down few, please go through following article

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/feature-comparison-between-sep-121-sbe-and-ee

I have an article which demonstrate upgrade process from SEP 11.x to SEP 12.1, It would be similar in SBE case.

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/sep-11x-sep-121-upgrade-process-graphical-overview

Hi Chetan,

Our main concern is moving the SEP from machine 1 to machine 2. So I am mainly looking for the correct procedure to accomplish this. As mentioned before I did find an article describing this procedure for SEP 11.0. But since we currently run SEP 12.0 I would like to have know how it should be done for this version.

We only have 15 computers running so SBE should be sufficient for us. So if no resource issues would be solved by this newer release I wouldn't want to risk failure just upgrading for no specific reason.

Johan

Hi Johan_st,

Go through following article

How to move the Symantec Protection Center from one server to a new server with a different

host name and IP Address.

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH98299

SBE 12.1 has many perofrmance improvements comapre to SBE 12.0

Thanks Chetan for helping me get through this.

One more question. I did install the new SEP 12.1 on the new machine but our clients are still using the 12.0 client. At the moment this doesn't seem to cause any problems. However, should I upgrade all these clients to 12.1?

I did experience some additional difficulties, updating the Sylink.xml and connecting a Windows 7 workstation, but at the moment everything seems to work fine and I've already uninstalled the manager from the server it initially ran on.

I do however believe that Symantec's TECH articles could benefit from some extra care when writing them. It is not always clear on which machine such or such procedure should be run.

For instanced, during the move I had to export the Sylink.xml and reload it. Reading this I thought that this would have to be done on the new machine running SEPM. I later found out that this should be run on each of the clients.

Thanks very much.

Johan

Hi johan_st,

Your Symantec Endpoint Protection Small Business Edition clients will upgrade automatically once the Symantec Protection Center has been upgraded. No further action is required on your part to complete the upgrade process

If you would like to manually upgrade the clients to the latest version please see:  

How to deploy a Symantec Endpoint Protection Client from the Symantec Protection Center (SPC) Console

However, To disable the auto-upgrade feature for clients

1. Login to the Symantec Protection Center Console.
2. Select the Computers page.
3. Under My Company select the group that includes the clients you would like to prevent from using the auto-upgrade feature.
4. Under Tasks select Edit the group properties.
5. Click the checkbox for Disable Automatic Client Package Updates.
6. Click OK.

Reference: http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH97535

It's always recommended to have Symantec Protection Center and SEP clients on the same version.