Agent Installation Guide › Installing an Agent on AIX Systems › Planning Agent Deployment

Planning Agent Deployment

Before you begin agent deployments, it is a good practice to identify elements that all agent installations can share and elements unique to each installation. The more elements that agents have in common, the easier agent installations become. Elements unique to each installation are the computers on which agents are installed and computers from which the agents collect events. Elements all agents can share include the collection server that manages the agents, the credentials of the low-privileged user under which the agent service runs, and the authentication key.

Common planning tasks include the following:

• Identify event sources from which to collect events.
• Identify computers that meet system requirements for agent installation.

  Note: See the CA User Activity Reporting Module Agent Hardware and Software Certification Matrix.

• Determine the IP addresses and host names of the computers that require agents.
• Identify the CA User Activity Reporting Module collection server that each agent is to register with.
• Decide on a common name and group for the low privileged user for agents.
• Set the authentication key to use for all agent installations. If already set, record the current setting for use during installation.
• Identify the host to target for the first agent installation. This agent can be used for creating connectors and exporting Connectors.xml to be referenced in the response file.
• Identify a second host to target for creating a response file and testing silent installation.
• Plan a common path for saving the exported Connectors.xml, the response file, and the installation program. You specify the path for the Connectors.xml file when you create a response file. It is convenient to copy all three files to the same location when preparing for mass deployment.
• Accept the default directory for agent installation, /opt/CA/ELMAgent, or determine another directory to use for all agent installations.