Overview of Site Services with the Symantec Management Platform (ITMS)

Definitions:

A site is typically a physical location in your organization (such as a particular building, or a level of a building), and all the computers with the Symantec Management Agent agent) installed there. Typically a site is defined by one or more subnets.

A subnet is a range of logical addresses on your network.

A site server is a computer that serves (or supports) agents in one or more sites, by supplying one or more site services.

A site service is a Symantec Management Platform (SMP) middleware component, that can reduce the network traffic and reduce the load on Notification Server (NS), by servicing agents, typically within one site.

Prerequisites:

All site servers must have the agent installed. A site server must be managed by a NS, and can only support agents that are managed by the same NS. Additionally each Site Service may have additional pre-requisites.

There are various Site Services, however the two main ones are: Package Service and Task Service. The Task Service requires IIS and .NET 2.0; the Package Service can use either windows file sharing, and/or IIS.

Structure:

To setup sites in the SMC.

1. Create a site
2. Create one or more subnets (if necessary)
3. Associate the subnets with the site
4. Create a site server
5. Enable one or more site services on the site server
6. Associated site server with the site (if necessary)
    

Notes:

• Site maintenance is the management of sites, subnets, and site services in your organization. You can manage your computers according to site and subnet, which lets you control groups of computers while minimizing bandwidth consumption.
• Typically, each site server services only the Symantec Management Agent (formerly Altiris Agents) that exist within the sites to which the site server resides.
   
• Sites must be manually created.
   
• Subnets are created from basic inventory and Active Directory Import, may be imported from CSV file, or created manually using the Altiris Console.
• Subnets must be (manually) assigned to sites.
• A subnet may be assigned to one site, and a wholly contained subnet within that subnet may be assigned to a second site, in which case computers in the contained subnet are assigned to the second site, and remaining computers in the first subnet are assigned to the first site.
  For example if
      192.168.0.0/16 is assigned to site-1
      192.168.42.0/24 is assigned to site-2
  Then:
      IPs from 192.168.0.0 .. 192.168.41.255 are assigned to site-1
      IPs from 192.168.42.0 .. 192.168.42.255 are assigned to site-2
      IPs from 192.168.43.0 .. 192.168.255.255 are assigned to site-1
   
• A site server is automatically assigned to the site to which their parent subnet is assigned, and cannot be unassigned
• A site server can also be manually assigned to other sites, if desired.
   
• Multiple subnets may be assigned to one site, but one subnet may only be assigned to one site.
• Multiple site servers may be assigned to one site, and one site server, may be assigned to multiple sites.

For more detailed information, please see the chapter Configuring Site Servers, in the Symantec Management Platform (SMP) Administration Guide in the IT Management Suite (ITMS) 8.5 Documentation

Support matrix information regarding Site Service as well as other Solutions and Suites can be found here: Platform and OS Support
 

How to create a new Subnet

1. In the Symantec Management Console (SMC), on the menu, select Settings > Notification Server Management > Site Server
2. In the Site Management screen:
3. In the left-hand pane,
   1. in the toolbar select: New > Subnet
4. In the New Subnet window
   1. In the Subnet field, enter the subnet (e.g. 192.168.11.0)
   2. In the Subnet mask field, the subnet mask (e.g. 255.255.255.0)
   3. Optionally: In the Assign to site, select the appropriate site.
   4. Click OK

How to create a new Site

1. In the Site Management screen:
2. In the left-hand pane
   1. in the toolbar select: New > Site
3. In the New Site window
   1. in the Name box, enter the name of the new site
   2. If you wish to to create subnets and assign them to this site:
   3. Click the yellow New icon
   4. In the New Subnet windows
      1. In the Subnet field, enter the subnet (e.g. 192.168.11.0)
      2. In the Subnet mask field, the subnet mask (e.g. 255.255.255.0)
      3. Click OK
   5. If you wish to to assign subnets that already exist to this site then:
   6. Click on the Blue plus Add icon
   7. In the Select Subnets window,
      1. In the left hand column, select one or more subnets
      2. In the middle, click the ">" icon,
      3. In the right-hand column, note that the desired computer is now listed
      4. Click OK
   8. Click OK to close the New Site window

How to assign a new subnet to a Site

1. In the Site Management screen:
2. In the left-hand pane pane
   1. Navigate to Site Management > Site
   2. Click on the Site
3. In the right-hand pane, in the detailed Information section
   1. Set View to subnet
   2. Click New
4. In the New Subnet windows
   1. In the Subnet field, enter the subnet (e.g. 192.168.11.0)
   2. In the Subnet mask field, the subnet mask (e.g. 255.255.255.0)
   3. Click OK

How to assign an existing subnet to a Site

1. In the Site Management screen:
2. In the left-hand pane:
   1. Navigate to Site Management > Subnets
3. In the right-hand pane:
   1. highlight the subnet you wish to assign
   2. Click icon for "Assign to site"
4. In the Select a site window
   1. Highlight the site
   2. Click OK