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Removing old Management server and clients

Created: 26 Jul 2007 | Updated: 22 May 2010 | 3 comments
jmiles's picture
jmiles
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We have recently added a new server to our organization, which we have made the Primary server in the Symantec System Center. It is running Symantec Corporate Edition 10.1.600.
 
The old primary server is about to be retired, but we are waiting as there are still clients that haven't been switched to the new Primary server. These clients are mostly field laptops that only check in once every few months, so I can't switch them. My question is what happens to these clients if I remove the old primary server from Symantec System Center? Will the clients connect to the new one automatically, or will they just lose their managed server status and use liveupdate?
 
Secondly, what is the proper way to remove a server from the Symantec System Center?
 
Thanks.
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don_ite's picture
don_ite Symantec Employee Accredited Certified
Removing old Management server and clients - Comment:26 Jul 2007 : Link
Hi Jeff,
 
When a remote client comes back into the network and finds it's parent server gone it will not do anything. Unless settings were made in advance for roaming, it will not be aware of the new parent server. It will not lose the information for it's old parent, and it will not move to the new parent. At this point, unless the parent is going to come back online, the client will have to be moved to the new parent manually.
 
What is the proper way to remove a server from the Symantec System Center? This is a good question. A lot of people do it in different ways; if it were me I would do the following.
 
1. Move all clients from that server to new servers.
2. Remove the SAV server from the network, either through an uninstall and replace with a client, or retire the machine entirely.
3. Clear the cache in the system center. This will remove the server from console.
 
Regards,
 
Don
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Bill Phillips's picture
Bill Phillips
Removing old Management server and clients - Comment:30 Jul 2007 : Link

Hi Don,

Our company is in the same boat as Jeff's.  We have 2 old servers that we want to retire.  With 3000+ clients and some only checking in once every few months, (laptop users, virtual machines, etc)  it seems to be an impossible task to migrate the clients to the new server.  I have to "catch" them while they are online to migrate them.  However, I cannot spend weeks on end monitoring my network looking for those machines that are rarely on the network.  It seems that there should be a way to instruct the managment server to migrate all clients that check in with it, to reassign to the new server without me having to constantly trying to ping the clients on a daily basis to see if they are online.

Perhaps this issue can be addressed in the next version.  Until then guess I'll be using AD, some sort of login script that copies grc.dat.

Thanks,

Bill.

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don_ite's picture
don_ite Symantec Employee Accredited Certified
Removing old Management server and clients - Comment:30 Jul 2007 : Link
Hi Bill,
 
You know, in the process of replying to the first post, I forgot to address the issue of remote machines, or at least did not address it well.
 
The best way that I can think of (other than using AD and some form of script to drop a grc file) is to setup client roaming for failover. When Roaming is setup for failover, a preferred server is selected. The clients will report in to the preferred server until it fails. Then they will fall back to a backup server.
 
If you were to setup your roaming for failover, with the old servers as backups and the new servers as preferred servers, when the laptops came back into the network they should receive these settings from the old servers and begin reporting in to the new (preferred) servers.
 
However, this will take a considerable amount of time as you have to wait for the laptops to come back into the network and hope they get the new settings. It will probably be quicker and more reliable to use AD and a script to drop a grc file.
 
Regards,
 
Don
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