Client Management Suite

Hi we are having issues with the Symantec Management Agent on client PC's becoming unresponsive when downloading and/or installing lots of Policies. we work in a large teaching environment and it is not uncomman to send 100 applications to a newly imaged machine.

We also find that when doing the above to multiple computers at the same time can make the NS server unresponsive. (It is not uncomman for us to be setting up hundreds of computers at time - at least quarterly) With the size of applications etc it can take more than 24hours to finish a computer off.

• Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard
• Server 24GB Memory
• NS7.1.8400
• Symantec Management Agent V7.1.15400.8400
• software Management solution Agent 7.15.7858
• Software Management Framework Agent 7.1.8400
• 8000 clients (only 5000 connected to this system at the moment - still in a migration stage for from NS6)
• 1 package server that would service approximately 1000 of the above 
• SQL server off box - SQL Server 2008 R2.

Any ideas on how to resolve or at least improve this would be appreciated - we did not notice the agent issue with the NS6, but the could tell when there was a high load on server.

Thanks, Catherine

You need to make sure all the clients connect to a Package Server and not the NS and as many as possible connect to a Task Server, no more than a 100 connecting directly to the NS for Tasks.

Make sure SQL has enough memory, try and fix it to around 2GB below what's on the box.

I suspect the Agent's unresponsiveness is due to the NS, the Agent should be able to queue Policies and Tasks effectively.

If you have one package server servicing 1,000 of the 5,000 systems you have online, then your NS is incredibly overworked as a package server.  Your NS should only be serving a handful of computers.  If you have no site servers running task service, you need to deploy some.  Almost every client should get tasks and packages from a site server, not the Notification Server.

Are you deploying these as tasks or as policies?

Most are deployed as policies. I will look into getting another site server set up and redirect clients to it. Thanks for the advice. I will let you know if it improves our current situation.

Thanks, Cat

Be sure to create and assign subnets to sites, and confirm each site has a site server:
http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO44294

This will provide predictable behavior, reduce bandwidth use, and ensure you're not overloading your Notification Server.

Also if you have not yet split the application pools check if your server w3wp.exe process is running above the 1.1 GiB mark. If so more pools should benefit :D.

www.symantec.com/connect/node/2585771