When to use LiveUpdate Administrator

Products

• Endpoint Protection

Issue/Introduction

When should LiveUpdate Administrator (LUA) be used to manage Symantec product and content updates in an environment?

Resolution

LiveUpdate Administrator (LUA) creates a local repository of the content and product updates available on the public LiveUpdate (LU) servers. Under the right circumstances, LUA can be used to minimize the amount of external bandwidth needed to update Symantec products in large, highly centralized networks. The main reasons for installing LUA are:

• Testing content updates before distributing them to production environments
• Reduced bandwidth utilization when updating unmanaged Symantec products
• An internal failover mechanism for updating managed Symantec products
• Consolidated management of updates for multiple Symantec products in secure environments

 

Content testing

For environments where content updates must be tested before use in production, LUA downloads can be configured to block new content from being distributed to production distribution centers until the content has been tested. Any downloads marked "Must Test" cannot be distributed to production distribution centers until the content is manually marked as Passed.

Note: Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager (SEPM) has this ability built-in through the LiveUpdate Content Policy. 

 

Bandwidth saving

LUA can lower the amount of external bandwidth used to download updates for unmanaged Symantec products in certain circumstances. Since LUA downloads all available updates for each Product Version Language (PVL) it's configured for, bandwidth savings will depend on the size of the average update downloaded by the clients, the number of clients using that update, and the amount of data LUA has to download to supply the updates. Use the following guidelines for determining if LUA will lower external bandwidth usage in your environment:

• Distributing non-delta updates (content not using a delta technology like Microdefs) will provide external bandwidth savings when used for 2 or more clients sharing the same Internet connection.
• Distributing delta updates (most content updates, including Antivirus definitions) will provide external bandwidth savings when used for more than 5600 clients sharing the same Internet connection.
  
  Note: The above guidance assumes an average LUA download size of 13 GB and an average client delta download size of 2 MB. For updates that utilize monthly Hub sets, there will be a much larger LUA download once a month of between 1.5 and 2.5 GB per content type. A much larger client count would be required to provide an external bandwidth benefit for this monthly Hub download.

 

Internal failover

LUA can be configured as a second source for updates for managed Symantec products such as SEP or Symantec Mail Security for Microsoft Exchange (SMSMSE). Use the guidance in the above Bandwidth saving section to determine if your environment would generate less external bandwidth using LUA or public LU.

 

Secure Environments

LUA can be used to limit the amount of computers accessing the public LU servers in networks where external Internet access is tightly controlled. The same functionality can be provided through a management server like Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager (SEPM) for managed products.

Read How to distribute definition content from a LiveUpdate Administrator 2.x (LUA 2.x) server to an isolated network for more information on distributing Symantec updates to an air gap network.

 

For more information on LUA, see Best Practices for LiveUpdate Administrator (LUA) 2.x.