Infrastructure Deployment › Infrastructure Deployment Introduction › Deployment Management Concepts › Using Scalability Servers in Context of Infrastructure Deployment

Using Scalability Servers in Context of Infrastructure Deployment

To reduce network usage when deploying large numbers of agents, you can “stage” deployment packages at scalability servers. To make deployment payload packages available at a scalability server, deploy the payload to the scalability server but specify the “stage package at scalability server” option. To subsequently deploy packages stored at the scalability server, check the “Transfer Packages from Scalability Server” option when selecting the deployment payload.

Using a scalability server with infrastructure deployment has implications for network configuration. Typically, a scalability server would be used to deploy agents to target computers that are located "close" on the enterprise network, that is, those that use relatively fast network speed between the scalability server and agent computers.

There are many administration tasks to perform and remember when using scalability servers with infrastructure deployment, including the following:

• To deploy to Windows target computers using a Linux scalability server with Telnet/FTP transfer mechanism, you must enable Telnet on Windows target computers. On computers running Windows 2003, Windows XP, or newer operating systems, the Telnet service can be enabled and started using the Administration Tools, Services dialog from the Windows Control Panel.
• To deploy to Linux or UNIX target computers using a scalability server with Telnet/FTP transfer mechanism, an FTP server must be enabled on the scalability server. Also, the target computer needs a Telnet server running because the manager uses Telnet to the target computer and FTP to the scalability server to pull the package across.

  In addition to the above, if your scalability server is running on a Windows machine, you will need to perform the following configuration task on the scalability server to set up an alternative FTP site for use by Infrastructure Deployment. A separate FTP site is required to avoid security issues with other FTP areas when sharing the staging location where CA ITCM agent packages will be stored:

  • Open the Control Panel, Administration Tools and select Internet Information Services (IIS) manager.
  • Right-click the FTP Sites node and select New, FTP Site to run the FTP Site Creation Wizard.
  • Run the wizard and enter ITCM FTP Site as the description for the new site. Select the default values given in the wizard until you get to the FTP Site Home Directory wizard page. On this page you will have to specify the DMPrimer install location directory, as this is where ITCM Infrastructure Deployment agent packages will be staged. If you already have a DMPrimer installed, then use the Browse button to locate the directory. By default the DMPrimer will be installed in Program Files\CA\DSM\DMPrimer. Having selected the FTP Site directory, continue through the wizard, selecting the default options, and click the Finish button.

  One point to note is that when using the Windows Scalability Server to deploy to Linux targets, the CA ITCM FTP Site must be started. You should ensure that any other FTP Site, such as the Default FTP Site, has been stopped; otherwise, the deployment will fail.

• When using FTP on a scalability server, you must be careful when specifying the user credentials needed to connect to it. When staging a package to the scalability server/FTP server, you must specify credentials of a user who has privilege to write to the scalability server. When deploying a package from a scalability server/FTP server, the anonymous user is typically used to access the packages.
• If deployment through Telnet/FTP is required, then FTP server details are provided during the manager installation and the DMPrimer packages are uploaded to the specified server. Normally, the FTP server is located on the same computer as a scalability server.

  If more than one FTP server is to be used against a single Infrastructure Deployment manager, for instance, if there are multiple scalability servers with an FTP server running on each computer, then you must take some manual configuration steps before deployment will use an alternative FTP server that was not configured at installation time.

  To change the FTP details, you must run the 'dmdeploy ftpinfo' command with the details of the new FTP server, and copy the primer packages and dmkeydat.cer file to the corresponding location on the FTP server. The deployment manager will then use this FTP server for deployment through Telnet/FTP. These steps are covered in the Changing FTP Server Details for Use with Infrastructure Deployment section.

• If you are using a scalability server on Windows for infrastructure deployment, note that Windows has a limit on simultaneous connections. Some jobs may fail when the connection limit is reached. In this case, you receive a message Failed to obtain package at this time. Connection limit on scalability server reached. Please retry. Use the configuration parameter 'Deployment Thread Limit' to control the number of concurrent deployments run by the Infrastructure Deployment manager. The default value of the configuration parameter is 10 and can be changed if you deploy through a scalability server running on Windows.
• In a pure IPv6 environment deployment fails, if the Telnet versions used do not support the IPv6 protocol.
• In a pure IPv6 environment deployment to Linux or UNIX target computers fails, if the FTP versions used do not support the IPv6 protocol.

More information:

Protocols for Transferring Packages Using Scalability Server