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Software Management Solution provides intelligent and bandwidth-sensitive distribution and management of software from a central Web console. It significantly reduces desktop visits and lets you easily support your mobile work force.
Software Management Solution also lets users directly download and install approved software or request other software.
Software Management Solution integrates with the Software Catalog and the Software Library that are part of the Symantec Management Platform. By leveraging this information, Software Management Solution ensures that the correct software gets installed, remains installed, and runs without interference from other software. This integration lets your administrators focus on delivering the correct software instead of redefining the packages, command lines, and so on, for each delivery.
Software Management Solution combines the functionality of earlier versions of Software Delivery Solution and Application Management Solution. It also supports the software virtualization technology that was available in Software Virtualization Solution.
Software Management Solution is part of the following suites:
Update: Localized documentation for this product is now available for French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese.
To install localized documentation, open the Symantec Installation Manager, click Check for Updates and select the language documentation package that you want to install.
To view localized documentation, do one of the following:
Additional releases are available for this version of Software Management Solution. For more information, see the following knowledge base articles:
The product installation includes the following documentation:
Document | Description | Location |
User’s Guide |
Information about how to use this product, including detailed technical information and instructions for performing common tasks. This information is available in PDF format. |
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Help |
Information about how to use this product. This information is the same as in the User’s Guide. Help is available at the solution level and at the suite level. This information is available in HTML help format. |
The Documentation Library, which is available in the Symantec Management Console on the Help menu. Context-sensitive help is available for most screens in the Symantec Management Console. You can open context-sensitive help in the following ways:
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Resource | Description | Location |
Symantec Management Platform Release Notes |
Information about new features and important issues in the Symantec Management Platform. This information is available as an article in the Knowledge Base. |
https://kb.altiris.com/article.asp?article=45141&p=1 You can also search for the product name under Release Notes. |
Installing the Symantec Management Platform products |
Information about using Symantec Installation Manager to install the Symantec Management Platform products. This information is available as an article in the Knowledge Base. |
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Altiris 7 Planning and Implementation Guide |
Information about capacity recommendations, design models, scenarios, test results, and optimization best practices to consider when planning or customizing an Altiris 7 Infrastructure for your organization. This information is available as an article in the Knowledge Base. |
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Knowledge Base |
Articles, incidents, and issues about this product. | |
Symantec Connect(formerly Altiris Juice) |
An online magazine that contains best practices, tips, tricks, and articles for users of this product. | http://www.symantec.com/connect/endpoint-management-virtualization |
Online Forums |
Forums for users of this product. |
The following terms are used in Software Management Solution. Some terms may have been used in different ways in earlier products.
Term | Definition |
Deliverable software |
A software resource that contains at least one package, or one command line, or both. |
Managed software package |
A package that is sourced from the Software Library. |
Managed software resource |
A software resource whose packages are sourced from the Software Library. |
Package |
The files and instructions that you download to and install on client computers. A package can consist of a single file or of a folder and all its contents including subfolders. A package file can be any of the following: |
Product |
A version-specific representation of an application and any of its updates or service packs. For example, Norton Internet Security 2008. |
Service pack |
A collection or roll up of the updates and fixes that bring a software release to a known state. A service pack does not represent a complete instance of the software. It must be installed on a computer that already contains the software release. |
Software release |
A full version of the software. Installation of a software release results in a complete and operational instance of the software. |
Software resource |
The meta data that describes a specific instance of a software application. For example, Norton Internet Security 2008 - English. |
Software update |
A small number of changes that improve or fix a software release. A software update does not represent a complete instance of the software. It must be installed on a computer that already contains the software release. |
Unique identifier |
Identifies a software resource by combining information such as the software’s company, product name, version, language code, and architecture type. |
Unmanaged package |
A package that is not sourced from the Software Library. |
Unmanaged software resource |
A software resource whose packages are not sourced from the Software Library. For example, the packages of an unmanaged software resource might be on an unsecured network share or a local hard drive. |
This release contains the following features:
Software Management Solution supports packages for the Windows, UNIX, Linux, and Mac operating systems. With few exceptions, all the functions in Software Management Solution work the same for all platforms. For example, you use the same method to create a delivery task for a Windows, UNIX, Linux, or Mac OS package.
Feature | Description |
All SVS-related functionality |
Examples of SVS functionality that is not supported are as follows:
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Software Portal |
The Software Portal is supported on Mac computers but not UNIX or Linux computers. |
The following Managed Software Delivery options:
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These options appear in the following places:
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The following Managed Delivery options:
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These options appear in the following places:
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The following Managed Delivery options:
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These options appear in the following places:
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Software Portal agent |
The Software Management Solution Plug-in for UNIX, Linux, and Mac provides support for the Software Portal on Mac computers. You do not need to install the Software Portal agent on Mac computers. |
In Software Management Solution, Quick Delivery and Managed Software Delivery leverage the software resource information that is in the Software Catalog and Software Library. When you create a task or policy, you select a software resource to deliver. Any information about the software that the task or the policy needs is available from the software resource.
Software Management Solution requires the following agents and plug-ins:
Software Management Solution supports hierarchy and replication. These features let you create tasks and policies at the top-level Notification Server computer and replicate them to child-level Notification Server computers. Software Management Solution supports full and differential replication. Differential replication replicates only those items that changed since the last replication.
Software Management settings control the behavior of the software-related policies and tasks. The default settings let administrators create policies and tasks without having to enter the details that they are not familiar with. Instead, a more experienced administrator can configure the default settings that apply to all the policies and tasks that are created. When necessary, the administrator who runs the specific policies and tasks can change the settings.
The different types of software delivery policies and tasks obtain their defaults from the following settings:
Managed Software Delivery simplifies advanced software deliveries by letting you deliver software as a unit, which can include multiple software resources as well as dependencies. For example, you can create a single Managed Software Delivery policy that installs an application and its associated patches and service packs. Managed Software Delivery can also run any task at any stage of the delivery. For example, it can run a task that performs a restart or runs a script.
Managed Software Delivery replaces traditional software delivery, sequential software delivery, and the software state compliance aspects of application management. Software delivery policies in 6.x focused on single package delivery. They did not measure whether the software was already installed or what state the software was in. Software delivery policies in 6.x did not easily let you reschedule delivery once it was completed without making package changes on the server side. Use Managed Software Delivery to perform the following actions:
Quick Delivery lets you perform a quick delivery of a single software resource that runs with minimum configuration. You can use the task-based Quick Delivery method to specify the software to deliver, the action to perform, and the computers to deliver to.
Because the software resources and the delivery settings are predefined, Quick Delivery makes it easy for administrators and non-administrators to deliver software. For example, help desk personnel can easily deliver hotfixes because all they have to do is select the correct hotfix from the Software Catalog.
When you create a Quick Delivery task, it runs as soon as possible. No further scheduling is needed. However, after the initial instance of a Quick Delivery task runs, you can edit and rerun it.
When all you need to do is quickly push out a package, use Package Delivery. This task-based delivery method lets you deliver any package regardless of whether it is associated with a software resource. Package Delivery replaces the Task Server plug-in that was introduced in a 6.x release to Software Delivery Solution. When you migrate a 6.x Task Server delivery task to Software Management Solution, it appears in the Package Delivery folder.
Software Management Solution supports the new maintenance window feature of Notification Server. In every policy and task, you can specify whether to respect the maintenance windows that are defined for computers in the target resource group. When a particular computer has no maintenance window defined, the policies and tasks run according to their defined schedule, regardless of their maintenance window setting.
When a package is delivered, a snapshot of the package is created on the client computer and is compared to the snapshot on the package server. If the snapshots do not match, it is possible that some kind of interception has occurred and corrupted the package. In that case, the package is re-downloaded. If the package is already on the client computer because of a recurring delivery or a delivery re-attempt, a package mismatch causes a re-download.
When a Managed Software Delivery policy completes an action on a client computer, it performs a compliance check to evaluate the success of the execution. The compliance check uses the software resource’s unique identifier to determine whether that software is installed on a client computer. For Windows software, you can define a detection rule that contains additional information about the software and makes the detection process even more accurate. After the compliance check, the Managed Software Delivery policy reports the status information to Notification Server.
This method of determining a policy’s success is more accurate than using the package’s exit code. A package can return an exit code that indicates success when, in fact, the delivery was completed but the installation was not successful.
During a Managed Software Delivery, the package download occurs during the compliance check and the program execution occurs during the remediation. When you schedule a Managed Software Delivery policy, you can assign different schedules for compliance and remediation. For example, you can schedule the compliance status to be reported during the day and the remediation to occur only during a maintenance window. You can also set these options in the default settings for all Managed Software Delivery policies and you can change the default settings for specific managed deliveries.
Managed Software Delivery supports user-based policies by letting you specify users and user groups as policy targets. This feature lets you deliver software to any managed computer that a specific user logs on to. When the user logs on to a computer, the Altiris Agent refreshes any policy that targets that user. The policy runs on that computer according to the schedule that you defined for it.
Support of user-based policies is limited to the Windows and Mac client operating systems. UNIX and Linux-based client operating systems cannot support user-based policies because such policies require the use of interactive logons. Because Quick Delivery and Package Delivery are task-based, they do not support user-based distribution.
In a Managed Software Delivery policy, you can set different schedules for the compliance check and the remediation (in this case, installation). The separate schedules allow for the offline execution of the Managed Software Delivery.
During a Managed Software Delivery, the package download occurs during the compliance check and the program execution occurs during the remediation. When you schedule a Managed Software Delivery policy, you define the schedule for the compliance check and then select an option to schedule the remediation. To schedule an offline execution, you select the option to perform the remediation during the next maintenance window.
The ability to schedule the package download and the program execution separately also conserves bandwidth. If the computer does not have the appropriate configuration for the software or if the software is already installed, the package is not downloaded.
Managed Software Delivery can use the supersedence associations that are defined for software resources to install software that replaces other software. A supersedence association is one in which one software resource replaces another software resource.
When you create a Managed Software Delivery policy for a software resource that has a supersedence association with other software, a message notifies you. If the selected software supersedes other software, you can uninstall the superseded software from the client computer before the selected software is installed. If other software supersedes the selected software, you can create the policy for the superseding software instead and ensure that you distribute only the current version of the software.
A software delivery task or policy can download a package to an alternate location on the client computer instead of the directory structure in which Software Management Solution stores the packages. This feature is new only for Windows packages. The UNIX, Linux, and Mac software deliveries already behave this way.
You can use software virtualization to facilitate the management of most Windows-based software on managed computers. Software virtualization lets you avoid conflicts between applications and quickly restore a broken application to its original installed state.
Software Management Solution lets you perform the following virtualization actions:
The ability to manage virtual layers with these Software Management Solution tasks and policies replaces the ability to manage virtual software layers through the Resource Manager.
The Software Portal has been redesigned and enhanced.
You can proactively identify and repair broken applications on selected computers. However, you no longer have to use one policy for scans and a different policy for repairs.
You can create a Windows Installer Repair policy or task to scan for broken Windows Installer applications. If an application needs repair, the policy or task sends a repair command to the Windows Installer service to initiate self-repair. As in Application Management Solution 6.x, you can perform both quick repairs and full repairs.
Use a policy as your primary means to repair Windows Installer applications. A policy repairs the applications that are currently broken, and it can also repair any applications that break in the future. Use a task to repair a specific application.
You can update the source paths of Windows Installer applications with resilient source paths. However, you no longer have to use one policy for scans and a different policy for source path updates.
You can create a Source Path Update policy or task to update the source paths to point to the package servers that you designate. If an application needs modification or repair, Windows Installer can access the needed installation file from one of these servers.
Use a policy as your primary means to update the source paths of Windows Installer applications. Use a task when you need to update the source path of a specific application immediately.
The Windows Installer Agent is now the Application Management Agent. A software resource for the Application Management Agent is created in the Software Catalog when Software Management Solution is installed. If the agent's default command lines do not meet your needs, you can edit the command lines of this software resource.
Software Management Solution contains all new reports. It also contains the reports that appeared in Software Delivery Solution 6.x. It does not contain any custom reports that were defined in 6.x.
The number of reports were reduced because of the following new features:
The new reports are as follows:
Report | Description |
Software Delivery - Audit Summary |
Summarizes the actions that were taken to create, delete, and modify software deliveries. |
Software Delivery - Download Status |
Displays the status of the software resource downloads that are associated with software delivery instances on individual computers. This report displays one "Download status" for each software delivery instance, even if that instance involves the download of multiple programs or tasks. |
Software Delivery - Download Summary |
Summarizes the aggregate status of the software resource downloads that are associated with all software delivery instances. This report displays one "Download status" for each software delivery instance, even if that instance involves the download of multiple individual software resources. Software deliveries that do not require a package download do not appear. |
Software Delivery - Execution Attempts |
Displays software delivery execution attempts by delivery method. |
Software Delivery - Execution Failures |
Displays the cause of failure for each program and task execution that failed. |
Software Delivery - Execution Status |
Displays the status of the program and task executions that are associated with software delivery instances on individual computers. This report displays one "Execution status" for each software delivery instance, even if that instance involves the execution of multiple programs or tasks. |
Software Delivery - Execution Summary |
Summarizes the aggregate status of the program and task executions that are associated with all software delivery instances. This report displays one "Execution status" for each software delivery instance, even if that instance involves the execution of multiple programs or tasks. |
Software Delivery - Licensing Failures |
Lists software delivery failures that resulted because a licensed Software Management Solution agent was not installed. |
Software Delivery - Status (All Instances) |
Summarizes the aggregate status of all software delivery instances. This report appears as a graphic on the Software Management Solution portal page. |
Software Delivery - Summary (All Executions) |
Summarizes the aggregate status of all software delivery instances. This report appears as a graphic on the Software Management Solution portal page. |
Software Management Portal - Software Request Status |
Lists the current status of each software request that was received through the Software Portal. |
Software Management Portal - Software Request Summary |
Summarizes the aggregate status of all the software requests that were received through the Software Portal. |
Software Compliance Remediation Summary |
Summarizes the number of remediation attempts per software delivery policy. |
Software Compliance Status |
Lists the compliance status of software that was installed on individual computers by Managed Software Delivery policies. |
Software Compliance Summary |
Summarizes the aggregate compliance status of software that was installed by Managed Software Delivery policies. |
Software Resources - Broken Element Summary |
Summarizes the number of unique computers on which the key path for a particular Windows Installer component or another file was found to be missing. The data is based on scans conducted during a specified date range. |
Software Resources - Broken Elements |
Lists the computers that had broken elements during a specified time range. |
Software Resources - Current Broken Elements |
Lists the Windows Installer key paths or other files that were found missing and that could not be remediated by the most recent evaluation of repair tasks or policies. |
Software Resources - Inaccessible Source Paths |
Lists computers that had software resources with inaccessible source paths during the most recent scan. |
Virtualized Software Resources - Event Status |
Lists details of the status of events for virtualized software resources. |
Virtualized Software Resources - Event Summary |
Summarizes events for virtualized software resources. |
Wise Toolkit consists of the following tools:
The tools in Wise Toolkit have not changed. However, the way that you install and start the tools has changed as follows:
Software Management Solution requires Symantec Management Platform 7.0 to be installed on the Notification Server computer. It can be installed on any server that is acceptable for the Symantec Management Platform.
Software Management Solution can manage the following client platforms:
Software Management Solution can manage the following server platforms:
The installation of Software Management Solution is managed through the Symantec Installation Manager.
For more information, see the Symantec Management Platform Installation Guide, which is available when you download the product. After you install the product, it is also available from the Windows Start menu, under Altiris > Symantec Installation Manager > Symantec Management Platform Installation Guide.
Issue | Article ID |
Data migration from 6.x
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The upgrade of Software Delivery Solution 6.x is managed through the Symantec Installation Manager when you upgrade a Notification Server 6.x computer. You can choose the solutions to upgrade during the Notification Server upgrade process.
For more information, see the Symantec Management Platform Installation Guide, which is available when you download the product. After you install the product, it is also available from the Windows Start menu, under Altiris > Symantec Installation Manager > Symantec Management Platform Installation Guide.
You can migrate data from Software Delivery Solution 6.x and Software Virtualization Solution 6.x to Software Management Solution 7.0. Options for migrating data are available in the Symantec Installation Manager.
You cannot migrate the Application Management Solution 6.x policies that are now part of Software Management Solution 7.0. You must re-create the Windows Installer repair policies and the Source Path Update policies.
For more information, see Knowledge Base article 44969, Migration of 6.x Data to Symantec Management Platform 7.0.
6.x data that can be migrated | Resulting 7.0 data |
Software Delivery Task Server Plug-in task |
Package Delivery task |
Sequential Software Delivery task |
Managed Software Delivery policy that contains a Package Delivery task for each package that was in the 6.x task |
The following types of tasks:
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Legacy Software Delivery policy |
SVS Task Server Plug-in task |
Software Virtualization task |
Package and its programs You can migrate the following types of packages:
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Package and associated command lines A migrated package is not associated with a software resource or placed in the Software Library by default. Before you deliver a migrated package with Quick Delivery, Managed Software Delivery, or the Software Portal, associate the package with a software resource. |
When you migrate package data from 6.x, the location of a migrated package file depends on the location of the 6.x package as follows:
A migrated package is not associated with a software resource or placed in the Software Library by default. You can deliver the package with a Package Delivery task, which does not require a software resource. If you want to deliver a migrated package with Quick Delivery, Managed Software Delivery, or the Software Portal, associate the package with a software resource first. You might also want to place a migrated package in the Software Library.
For more information, see the topics about associating a package with a software resource and about adding an existing package to the Software Library in the Symantec Management Platform Help.
Software Management Solution 7.0 replaces the 6.x versions of Software Delivery Solution and Application Management as well as some features of Software Virtualization Solution 6.x. Software Management Solution contains most of the functionality of those solutions as well as many new features and functions.
For more information about how features in 6.x compare to features in Software Management Solution 7.0, see the Software Management Solution Help.
The following issues are unresolved in this release. If an article ID is included, you can click the link for additional information.
Known Issue | Article ID |
Virtualizing Windows applications during a software delivery requires a specific version of the Software Virtualization AgentThe Virtualize this software option in the Managed Software Delivery wizard can only be used with the version of the Software Virtualization Agent that is shipped with Software Management Solution or a later version. Earlier versions do not support this feature. |
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Virtualizing software during installation deactivates existing layersWhen you virtualize software during a Managed Software Delivery, and the software is installed into a layer on the client computer, any existing layers on that computer are deactivated. Those layers remain deactivated after the new installation finishes, and you must re-activate them manually. |
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Managed Software Delivery does not virtualize software whose installation file is in EXE formatManaged Software Delivery does not virtualize an EXE package when you check the Install this policy’s software into a virtual software layer check box. The software is installed normally instead of in a layer. |
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You cannot execute Managed Software Delivery policies from the client side on non-Windows computersThe client-side user interface (on the Altiris Agent) is not available on UNIX, Linux, or Mac computers. Therefore, you cannot execute Managed Software Delivery policies from those client computers. This issue occurs because those policies do not appear in the utility "aex-swdapm" on UNIX, Linux or Mac clients. |
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Some Managed Software Delivery settings do not work for non-Windows softwareBecause the client-side user interface (on the Altiris Agent) is not available on UNIX, Linux, or Mac computers, the following Managed Software Delivery settings do not apply to UNIX, Linux, or Mac delivery policies:
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Launching a GUI application via Software Delivery on a Mac computer is not recommendedTo ensure the highest security, we recommend that you do not launch a GUI-based application through a Software Management or Inventory task. If the computer is at the login window, you may inadvertently provide root access to the computer through the application. |
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Reports are not sent from UNIX, Linux, or Mac computersQuick Delivery tasks for UNIX, Linux, or Mac do not send execution or status reports to the Symantec Management Console. |
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Cannot deliver SLES 9 RPM packagesYou cannot use Managed Software Delivery or Quick Delivery to install RPM packages that were created with RPM Package Manager 4.1.1 or earlier. For example, those used on SLES 9. Because those packages cannot be imported into the Software Catalog, they do not have software resources that you can deliver. |
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Solaris 10 zones are not supportedA Solaris 10 global zone that has non-global zones installed is not supported. However, Solaris 10 that does not contain any non-global zones is supported. |
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The names and descriptions of the Software Delivery for UNIX and Mac exporters and importers appear in English onlyWhen you migrate Software Delivery data for UNIX and Mac, the names and descriptions of the exporters and importers that appear in the Exporter and Importer Configuration dialog boxes always appear in English and are never translated. |
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You cannot type a command line in a Package Delivery taskA Package Delivery task can deliver a package that is not associated with a software resource and is not in the Software Library. Such packages do not have predefined command lines. However, because the Command Line box in a Package Delivery task is currently not editable, you cannot deliver a package that does not have a predefined command line. |
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Cannot use the default policy to uninstall the Software Management Solution plug-in for UNIX/Linux/Mac from Mac client computersThe uninstall command line for Mac computers is incorrect in the policy "Software Management Solution Plug-in for UNIX/Linux/Mac Uninstall". Workaround:
You can schedule this task to run on any Mac computer that contains the plug-in. |
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The Software Portal does not open properly on a computer that runs Windows Server 2003 or 2008This problem occurs when the computer's browser security settings are set to High, which disables the Security Settings option for "Launching Programs and Files in an IFRAME". Because the Software Portal home page uses IFRAME, the page is not rendered properly. We cannot fix this issue because we cannot edit your browser security settings. |
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The Software Delivery History Web part displays an errorWhen you add the Software Delivery History Web part to your My Portal page, it displays an error instead of data. |
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