Improvements to Software Management in 7.5 SP1

Table of Contents

Introduction
New Features
   New Operating System Support
New Packages for Virtualization
Upgrade Paths
Drag and Drop Managed Delivery Policies
Software Portal Performance Increased
Agent Stability Improved
Packages in the Library under one Virtual Directory
New Advanced Options for Managed Delivery
Plug-in Policies respect Maintenance Windows
Support for Internet Explorer 10 and 11
Important Fix! Java
Conclusion

Introduction

The following information is provided by Symantec Development as improvements made to both the Software Management Framework and Software Management Solution with the release of version 7.5 SP1. These are provided in both a technical and summary format, depending on the sensitivity of the information. This information is provided as-is and is hopefully useful when considering upgrading to this version or when using it.

Scope of this article:

ITMS components covered in this article:

• Software Management Solution (SWM) for Windows
• Software Management Framework (SMF)
• Inventory Rules Management (IRM)
• Workspace Virtualization

New Features

A large part of the work done for 7.5 SP1 was in the form of addressing defects. Many defects, including all those implemented in the 6 hot-fixes, are fixed in SP1. New features were also added. Some of the features below cover overall ITMS features, while the others are specific for Software Management and the four components listed in the scope section previous.

In the four mentioned components, the following features have been implemented in 7.5 SP1 as well as support for overall ITMS:

• New Operating Systems support, on both workstation and server platforms for the client, and what the Notification Server
• The versions of Virtualization Agent and Virtual Composer have been updated
• Package for Symantec Workspace Streaming Agent was added
• Specific supported upgrade paths were provided
• Now a Managed delivery policy can be created for a computer or multiple selected computers by dragging and dropping a software release on it
• Software portal performance was improved
• Agent stability was improved
• Packages for Software library now located under one Virtual Directory in Internet Information Services (IIS)
• Result-based actions UI for advanced options in Managed delivery policy has been refactored
• Agents / Plug-ins rollout policies now respect maintenance windows
• Support for Internet Explorer 10 and IE11

New Operating System Support

Fixes and enhancements to support newer operating systems was implemented in 7.5 SP1. This broadens what was already supported in General Release of 7.5. This includes both what Operating Systems the Notification Server can be installed to, and what versions of Windows the Symantec Management Agent and associated plug-ins and subagents can be installed to.

• Notification Server can now be installed and run on Windows Server 2012 R2
• Site Server services can now be installed and run on Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2
• The new versions of Windows where the Agent and plug-ins can be installed:
  • Windows 7 Embedded
  • Windows 8.1
  • Windows 2012 R2

New Packages for Virtualization

To help support the virtualization functions, Software Management will now supply the Software Resources and Releases for the newest version (at the time of the Sp1 release) of the virtualization agents and plug-ins. There are some known issues with the implementation, as noted below.

• Software Management Solution 7.5 SP1 includes:
  • Updated SWV Agent version 7.5.749
  • Updated Package for Symantec Virtual Composer version 7.5.0.749
  • New Package for Symantec Workspace Streaming Agent version 7.5.0.749
• Known Issues:
  • Too many empty virtualization software components on NS server after upgrade (This occurs when upgrading on-box from 7.5 -> 7.5.SP1. This has no functional impact but does provide some clutter when looking at the legacy or resource view for Software Resources.
  • Version of package for VirtualComposer not updated after upgrade - This can occur during the upgrade, but does not have a high-occurrence.
  • It is highly recommended to reboot target clients after removing the virtualization agent.

Upgrade Paths

The Symantec Management Platform supports a number of upgrade paths that may differ from what versions Software management supports. Software Management and the associated components support the following upgrade paths.

• The Server supports upgrades from 7.1 SP2 MP1.1 and rollups directly to 7.5 SP1.
• If already running 7.5, the upgrade is supported from Hotfix 6. Thus it is recommended to upgrade the server to 7.5 hot fix 6 if you are on a previous version of the hot fix. Note that this does not require you to upgrade the plugins and agents.
• The Software management Framework (Symantec Management Agent main install), Inventory Rule Management, and the Software Management Solution agents/plug-ins upgrades are supported from any version starting from 7.1 SP2 general release.

Drag and Drop Managed Delivery Policies

Now Managed Delivery Policies can be dragged onto computers within the last selected target or filter. This now gives the ability to more efficiently target a system or systems using the drag and drop functionality. Previously this did not support multi-select, and browsing was difficult, severely limiting the useful of drag and drop in relation to Managed Delivery Policies. In the future it would be very useful to drag and drop policies onto filters, though at this time it is limited to single or multiple-selected computers.

Software Portal Performance Increased

The Software Portal presents challenges in large and/or complex domain environments. As releases are available, development is always looking for ways to improve performance. Due to the complexity of enumerating all users and groups in a multi-domain environment, or even just a very large single domain environment, these improvements may be necessary for large and complex environments. Further, in smaller environments these changes will only increase load times for a smoother, quicker portal experience.

The following changes were made in the 7.5 SP1 release to alleviate some basic Portal issues seen within both the 7.1 and initial 7.5 versions.

• Issue: Server performance becomes degrades with heavy Portal usage
  Answer: The scope collection 'All resources' was replaced by 'Computers' for a resource target that is created for published Managed Delivery Policies
• Issue: In very large environments the Software Portal times out for many users, users with less groups load after 1 to 3 minutes
  Answer:
  • Development created a new API that more efficiently enumerates target domains.
  • Improved code for parallel enumeration of AD groups and users
  • Registry keys for performance with one addition:
    • registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Altiris\SWM
      • value: includeDomainList - available previously to limit the amount of domains scanned. The default option is to have multiple domains disabled performance reasons, and this key allows a admin to include other domains specifically for Portal usage.
      • value: ScanMethod, possible values: 1 (linear scan), 2 (parallel scan, default))

Development's quality assurance team conducted performance testing on a Symantec Management Platform Server with 4 cores, 6gb ram for the Software portal. A complex domain structure with 10,000 resources was created to test load times. The following results were found:

• Before the fixes in SP1 were implemented, the loading of all resources takes more than 1 min
• After the fixes, the loading of all resources takes 23-25 seconds.

*NOTE: These results were based on a specific test setup and may not represent the results in your environments due to many factors.

The following fixes and enhancements were also completed for this release:

• The default sorting of publishing items in the software portal is now set by Name.
• Fixed an issue where the scrollbars inside of the Software Portal window disappear and the user is unable to scroll through published software and software requests.
• "Audit Summary" report now shows Software portal requests.

Agent Stability Improved

Agent stability was improved with the 7.5 SP1 release. Two specific hang/crash issues were resolved. In one case the Agent User Interface would hang when launched, due to the Software Management interfaces. In the other the Software Management components caused the Symantec Management Agent to crash.

17 other specific stability issues were addressed, including component crashes (SMFDiscoveryOn64BitOS.exe), and agents becoming unresponsive.

Specific details on these issues are available if you are experiencing a stability issue in 7.5 prior to upgrading to SP1. Upgrade if you are experiencing these issues, or if you are not able to upgrade contact Support to ensure you have the correct issue identified.

Packages in the Library under one Virtual Directory

Performance and management in IIS for packages published to the Software Library for environments with a large number of packages became difficult previously. For 7.5 SP1 the management and performance was simplified by a change in design.

• Before SP1 all packages from the Software Library had their own package share created in IIS
• In SP1 now all packages located in one subfolder will be placed under one package share. This applies to the Library due to the single share location where all packages will be placed.
• After upgrade all packages from the Software Library will be marked and relocated into one package share in IIS when the NS.Nightly schedule executes.
• Known issue:
  • If the Software library is not available during upgrade, packages from the software library will never be grouped under the single location folder in IIS
  • You cannot set any system folder or a root disk as a Location for Software Packages
  • If the Software package location folder that existed before the upgrade to 7.5 SP1 is a system folder or a root disk, the virtual directories for the packages that are located in that folder are not rearranged to the new structure

New Advanced Options for Managed Delivery

New options for the Results-based actions are now available in 7.5 SP1. Before the deferral option only allowed one value for a specific time duration, or minutes, hours, and days, separately. In SP1 now all three are available to be used together, allowing much greater flexibility for the deferral option. The terminate after option also was given the same flexibility.

The following screenshots show the before and after look of the Results-based actions in the Advanced options for a Managed Delivery Policy:

Before:

After:

Plug-in Policies respect Maintenance Windows

Several requests have been made over the years for the Plug-in install, upgrade, and uninstall policies to respect maintenance windows. For Software Management this was implemented in 7.5 SP1. Previously a schedule could be specified but that schedule would never adhere to existing maintenance windows. The new dropdown provided in SP1 allows the admin to select "Once at next maintenance window". This takes any specific scheduled time away and sets it to run at the next available maintenance window. For environments with stringent change controls this now gives them the flexibility to upgrade, install, or uninstall plugins in adherence to set maintenance windows.

The following screenshots show the before and after UI for the schedule in the plug-in policies.

Before:

After:

Support for Internet Explorer 10 and 11

Most functions and features already worked in Internet Explorer versions 10 and 11, but some areas did not. First, the Software Portal presented no known issues, so no changes were made to the code for support for these versions of IE. A few Console pages were found to be dysfunctional, and are outlined below. These issues were fixed in 7.5 SP1.

• Unable to save detection rule for a package on Internet Explorer 11
• Internet Explorer 11: The Software Publishing tab is was not present in the Software Resource window
• Internet Explorer 10: The Portal page is broken by the Software Finder and Data Providers web parts.

Important Fix! Java

Prior to 7.5 SP1, we had varying issues with the enhanced security model implemented starting in Java 7 Update 51. While there were ways to work around the issue, it was a problem in that any system that needed to run the console required manual work to get the Java components working. These impact a number of areas in the Console, including the ability to browse, create, and update packages.

In version 7.5 SP1 we now require no additional steps for Java to work.

Conclusion

I hope this information was useful when assessing whether to upgrade or what fixes for Software Management are included in 7.5 SP1. If you have questions that are not answered in this article, check on Symantec Connect or contact Support.