Symantec Management Platform (Notification Server)

We have "NS 6.0.6074 SP3 + R8" but I thought I'd go looking for information about any new version that might be available or being developed. We don't manage our own server (large organisation) so I'm new onto the NS scene.

If I look for products I can find all sorts of categories with meaningless verbiage but I just can't find any product that mentions it actually is or comes with Notification Server 7. Has it been renamed? If so, what is it now called? If not, then what "suite" or whatever comes with NS7, and is there a page that actually says "yep, this is what actually comes with this unfortunately-named product suite"?

Thanks.

however all the documentation can be found here: www.altiris.com/Support/Documentation.aspx Notification Server has been and will continue to be the core of Altiris. The suites are really Client Management Suite and Server Management Suite. Asset Management, Service Desk (Help Desk) and CMDB have not yet been released for 7.

The suites are still pretty much the same, so if you looking for Patch Management for example, look on the documentation page I have linked, and check version 7.0 of the Patch Management manual

This is not anything new, Client Management Suite, Server Management Suite, etc all existed under the Altiris 6 world. Check your licensing, you probablly have one level of one of the suites, or maybe Total Management Suite which is all levels of all suites.

What has changed in the 7 world is the levels are gone.  If you have Client Management Suite you have all of Client Management Suite, not parts of it.... Same as Server Management Suite, etc

What exactly is the question you are looking for?

As I said, I'm new to this scene and wasn't aware that NS was the core of all the suites. I simply new that I wanted Notification Server but couldn't find it. I think Symantec's product information pages should at least list it in the "Products A to Z" page and explain what the deal is.

did exactly that. However, when you consider the sheer number of products Symantec owns and operates, that would be one big page! Basically though, everything comes with or is required to have Notification Server (except for the stand alone version of Deployment Server). With the emergence of version 7, everything is controlled by the Symantec Installation Manager (which loads the NS up). So as Jonathan asked, what are you looking to do? We can certainly help guide you in the right directrion.

I intend to use NS7 to make sure certain programs are all current. For example, I will be using it to make sure Windows Media Player is at version 11 on all machines, or upgrade any old Adobe Readers to the current version. I did a report yesterday that found 140 machines in my own building that did not have WMP 11, and I have a test collection comprising a few machines which received the software delivery package and upgraded WMP without a hitch. So, all I want is NS, so that's why I was looking for product information for "Notification Server 7". We also have DS in our organisation which we use far too much, and I'd like to reduce the use of DS and increase the use of NS (we're also in the process of doing more with WSUS and I also intend to do less via group policy and shift some things to NS).