Implementation Guide › Planning Your Environment › Subscription Update Planning › The Subscription Service

The Subscription Service

Your environment can have one server performing all tasks, or it can have several servers, each dedicated to performing one or more specific roles, such as collection, correlation and reporting. You use the Subscription Service to keep all of your servers up to date with the latest content, operating system and product updates.

The Subscription Service uses a proxy-client system to deliver updates. CA publishes updates, packaged into modules, to the CA Subscription Server. One or more servers in your environment act as subscription proxies. These proxies contact the CA Subscription Server over the Internet, download update modules, and self-install them. All other servers in your environment are subscription clients, downloading updates from the proxies in turn.

In some environments, security policies or other considerations restrict network access to the Internet. In these cases, you update your CA Enterprise Log Manager environment through offline subscription. Offline subscription requires you to download updates from the CA offline subscription FTP site. You then manually copy the updates to a CA Enterprise Log Manager proxy that does not have internet access, called an offline proxy. Updates proceed normally, with subscription clients downloading and installing updates from this offline proxy.

Note: By default, the Subscription Service is not configured to perform automatic updates. To use the Subscription Service, you must configure settings, such as choosing modules and setting an update schedule.