Description of the CA Threat Management Tiers

Planning a Tiered Implementation › CA Threat Manager Tiers

CA Threat Manager Tiers

The following table describes a tiered implementation that you can use as a guideline when designing your own implementation. Note that CA Threat Manager provides complete flexibility and can be scaled up or down by adding or subtracting tiers as necessary to accommodate the layout and organization of your business.

Tier	Typical Location for this Tier	CA TM Product Component Installed at this Tier	CA TM Functions Provided at this Tier
Tier 1	Corporate Data Center	CA Threat Management Administration Server	Manages subnets Manages and pushes policies Collects alerts from lower tiers Generates reports Manages licenses by connecting to //itmlicense.ca.com/
Tier 2	Corporate Data Center	Redistribution Server (1 or more) Policy Proxy Server (1 or more)	Polls the CA Content Update Server using the Internet for new updates Provides content and signatures to clients in lower tiers Pushes policies to lower tiers
Tier 3	Corporate Data Center (High Risk machines and Mail Servers)	Threat Management Agent, plus MS Exchange or Lotus Notes Mail Groupware Option	Scans mail passing through the servers Forwards alerts to previous tier, or directly to ITM Server
Tier 4	Regional Level Division Servers	Redistribution Server (1 or more) Policy Proxy Server (1 or more)	Provides content and signatures to clients in lower tiers Collects and forwards alerts to a higher tier, or directly to the ITM Server
Tier 5	Regional Level Laptops, Desktops, and other servers	Threat Management Agent	Pulls content and signature updates from previous tier Forwards alerts to a higher tier, or directly to the ITM Server