Client Management Suite

Hello,

We have been asked to perform and document the analysis / considerations / best practices for upgrading our current ITMS 7.1 SP2 MP1 environment to 7.5.

It would be of great help if people around could help / share their experiences about the upgrade, issues identified, any precautions they may have taken, things to be considered, etc.

Thanks
snm1502

We are in the same boat. Good place to start for us was the IT Management Suite (ITMS) 7.5 Documentation

http://www.symantec.com/docs/DOC5131

There is a migration guide there...

Anyway maybe the most important one thing I got from my readings is to make sure you have proper backups before starting the upgrade. Also snapshots if you run VMs.

I have done 7.5 in a test environment and did not have any issues - that was a clean install, then HF1 and HF2 on top.

Hope that help

ITMS 7.5 installation, upgrade, and migration prerequisites

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/quickstart-guides-migrating-upgrading-altiris-75

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/videos/altiris-71-itms-75-how-upgrade-video

hi,

Do you need more help here ?

Hello James,

Thanks for the follow up.

It would be great you have any personal experiences / steps / best practices to share that are not yet highlighted in the post.

However, at this point, I have just developed a DEV server to test the upgrade / migration which is scheduled to be completed in next couple of weeks including the analysis of the server and the process. Will continue to post updates and raise questions at every points wherever needed.

Thanks,
snm1502

I made myself some considerations here:

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/events/altiris-75-series-2

Hope that helps you.

Hello Rafael,

Thanks for the suggestions in the other post. They are really very helpful.

As mentioned above, I have done a test upgrade and directed one of my 7.1 client to new test server using AexAgentUtil, after redirection:

1. It did updated the configuration and inventory first time, however, later its not updating them at all (manual or automatic)
2. I enabled Collect Full Inventory on that machine and completed successfully. It looks like it hasn't collected all of the data.. for e.g.  machine is not available in Inv_SW_Antivirus table however, it is available in Inv_AddRemoveProgram. Not sure if my understanding is correct.

Also, it would be great if you could please share any other details that could be considered.

Thanks
snm1502

For what I understood, are you holding both servers on? I'm guessing high here but I think that this agent is trying to post on your new notification server webpage and not getting any answer.

Take a look at the agent log files, normally they are held here (on Win7): C:\ProgramData\Symantec\Symantec Agent\Logs.

If anything, these logs are going to answer why it is not working properly.

Thanks for the reply, Rafael.

Yes, both servers are on. Server 1 is our Prod server to which the agent was reporting, Server 2 is our test server to which I have redirected the agent and is now reporting.

I noticed sometime before, the agent did got updated however, there was a delay in that and now again when I hit the Update Config request it didn't get updated quickly, probably it might again take a longer time.

Is this something related to network, where the connectivity is not good or could we still check somethings.

Also, I have checked in the logs and I did not find any errors in there.

Please advise if I am still missing something.

Hi snm1502, no problem.

Man, can you attach this agent log file so I can take a look? It's hard to tell from what you've described.

If your machine is on network and domain, seeing other machines (ping) and the NS server, it is not related to connectivity.

Are there other agents redirected to this test NS? I guess it could be something related to IIS configuration on your test NS, long shot here. Is your applications on Classic Net App Pool?

Thanks for the reply, Rafael.

Not sure how, but agent is updating properly. I created couple of policies to test and all went good. Even the update configuration worked manually as well.

I have for now scheduled Full Inventory to be collected (yet to confirm if this worked) and couple of software policies which worked good.

Any tips on how would I ensure that inventory is being updated completely?

Thanks again.

Regards,

Snm1502

Hmm,

When any task is running the agent creates event files on C:\Program Files\Altiris\Altiris Agent\Queue\YOURNSSERVER, and then send those files to Notification Server to process the data and turn them into information on your CMDB. So, if your running full inventory, a lot of files are going to be generated there and then sent to NS to process. Then you can take a look at your Resource Manager screen and see the information you need on that particular resource.

It that it?

Hello Rafael,

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, that helps.

We have the inventories and policies running (SWD, Inventory, App Metering, Patch) and have checked most of the data is now available. Looks like the install has worked and is properly configured.

Would now proceed further to check for new features of 7.5 and its testing.

Would you be able to share any information on the other things / features that could be checked?

Regards,
snm1502

Glad I can help, man!

Have you tested deployment? Creating and deploying images is a critical feature part of CMS. At least, I think so.

Best regards,

Rafael Fontana

Hi, snm1502:

Verify the configuration for your upgrade policies of the agent and the plugins: They may be configured as "Run ONCE" or something similar (I don't have them in front of me in this moment)

Take into account that if you have ever run this policy in your agent (may be for updating from 7.1 to 7.1 SP2), the agent will not run again the policy while it is configured this way.

I can imagine two solutions:

.- Change the configuration of the policy to run at some moment (in two hours time, on Mondays morning...)

.- Clone the policy into a new one: as the new policy has never been executed on your agent, it will run.

Just my two cents ;)