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Remote Deployment and Policy Configuration Recommendations

Consider the following aspects and recommendations to improve remote deployment and policy operations:

• Number of target machines

  For optimal performance, limit the deployment job size to 500 target machines in a batch.

• Number of Distribution Servers

  Deployment throughput is better when multiple distribution servers are used.

• Deployment package size

  The smaller the deployment software package the better the throughput. The numbers recommended assume that all of the managed servers are required to have SystemEDGE and Advanced Encryption.

  Note: A typical package size ranges from 10MB through 20MB.

• Quality and speed of the network

  Low bandwidth, high packet loss and high latency between the Distribution server and the target affect the rate and reliability of Deployment and Configuration operations.

• The timescale for the rollout of Monitoring Software to the target systems

  Stagger the deployment of monitoring software using collocated deployment servers. Staggering reduces the load on the network infrastructure. This load reduction can be achieved by creating a number of jobs, or by using the Staggering capability built into the solution.

  If the monitoring software must be deployed over short time, we recommend deploying additional Distribution Servers in the environment.

• Frequency of agents reconfiguration (by Policy Configuration)

  Reconfiguration of SystemEDGE Agents is expected to take around 30 seconds plus from 2 through 10 seconds per agent in a typical network environment. If agents must be reconfigured frequently, we recommend deploying additional Distribution Server in the environment.

• Geographical distribution of the target systems across multiple sites

  Where the target systems are distributed across multiple sites, we recommend deploying a Distribution Server at each location. This recommendation is especially true if the remote data centers use a slow (< 100Mb/sec) or unreliable link. Deploying a local Distribution Server allows all Deployment and Configuration requests to be directed through the on-site Distribution Server. This limits the network traffic between the central and remote site.

• Communication ports

  Remote Deployment and Policy Configuration rely on communications by CA-Messaging for Domain Server to Distribution Server and Distribution Server to Agent communications. CA-Messaging communicates over ports 4104(UDP) and 4105(TCP). For remote sites that are firewall protected, placing a Distribution Server on site allows all CA-Messaging communications to be set up as point-to-point.

  Note: For agent discovery and ongoing monitoring, SNMP communications (typically port 161) are used. Open this port for direct communication from the managed systems to the manager.

• Management of Policy Configuration Policies and Templates

  We recommend organizing the monitoring requirements into Templates based on the different workloads in your environment. Use a maximum of 1000 monitors per Policy or Template. Any number of templates can be applied to a system, but we recommend limiting the number of templates to 100 per system.

• Service Membership

  To ease configuration operations, we recommend organizing servers into Services, with an upper limit of around 500 servers per Service. A server can be a member of multiple Services, and therefore we suggest creating services to represent different workloads. A template can be then applied directly to a Service.