LiveUpdate Download randomization options do not cover 24 hours

Products

• Endpoint Protection

Issue/Introduction

In the LiveUpdate policy you have configured LiveUpdate to run daily with a randomization period of + - 12 hours (24 hour window) however you notice that all Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP) clients are running the LiveUpdate task within a 12 hour window instead.

Cause

The 24 hour randomization window was replaced with a 12 hours randomization window in Endpoint Protection 12.1.5 and later.

The start time will be randomly selected from either the configured start time +12 hours or - 12 hours, depending on when the start time is configured:

• Start time configured before 12:00PM (Noon): randomized start time will be selected from start time +12 hours.
  • For example if the start time is configured for 9 AM, the randomization window will be between 9 AM and 9 PM.
• Start time configured after 12:00PM (Noon): randomized start time will be selected from start time -12 hours.
  • For example if the start time is configured for 7 PM, the randomization window is between 7 AM to 7 PM.

Resolution

To spread out the schedule over 24 hours the clients can be split into 2 client groups with different LiveUpdate policies applied: one to be scheduled before noon with randomization time +- 12 hrs and the other to be scheduled after noon with randomization time +- 12 hrs.