How the Symantec Management Platform works

Products that are designed to plug into the Symantec Management Platform are known as solutions. Multiple solutions that are installed as a unit are known as suites. When you install a solution or suite, the platform is also installed if it is not already installed.

During the platform installation, each of the platform services is installed. These services include the Notification Server service. The services are installed on a single computer that is known as the Notification Server computer. This computer is the computer you access, through the Symantec Management Console, to perform your administration and your management work.

The Symantec Management Console is a browser-based console that can be accessed from the Notification Server computer or remotely. When you access the console remotely, the computer must be on the network, running Microsoft Internet Explorer, and have access to the Notification Server computer.

As part of the platform installation, you set up the Configuration Management Database (CMDB). The CMDB stores the data that the platform and your solutions collect. The CMDB is a Microsoft SQL Server database.

After the platform and solutions are installed, you need to do some configuration. If any of the solutions manage other computers (most solutions do), you must install the Symantec Management Agent on the computers to be managed. The agent facilitates communications between the managed computer and the platform and solutions. The agent also receives tasks from the platform and solutions, helps install software, and sends collected data from the managed computer to the platform. There is an agent for managing UNIX, Linux, and Mac OS computers and one for managing Windows computers.

As solutions and the agent collect data, the data is stored in the CMDB, where it can be used in numerous ways. The data is used to generate the reports that help you manage your network. The data can also be used to trigger the actions that help prevent or address issues automatically.

The data that is collected and the tasks that are performed depend on the solutions and suites you install. The platform lets you run a single solution or numerous solutions. Regardless of the number of solutions installed, they are all managed through the Symantec Management Console. A single console means there is no need to learn new interfaces as you add new solutions to your environment.