Recommendations on installing the Package service on the Symantec Management Platform Server

Products

• IT Management Suite
• Client Management Suite
• Server Management Suite

Issue/Introduction

The customer has an implementation of a few Site Servers with the Package Service installed. Originally they had the SMP Server (Symantec Management Platform) as the only "Site Server" in the environment. In their attempt to manage the primary Site, they initially installed the Package Service on the SMP Server since it was the only available server for the main Site. 

Questions:
Should we install the package service on a SMP server?

If there is no a package server in the same Site as the SMP Server, should I make the SMP Server as a Package Server too?

Environment

ITMS 8.5, 8.6

Resolution

It is not recommended as a "Best Practice" to install Package Services on the SMP server, though it is possible. It is known to add additional load to the SMP Server because the packages are all duplicated (except for the DS packages) and the SMP is already very busy with file transfer, so we don't really need to add yet more file load.

By design, the SMP (NS) server IS a package server since it is hosting the source packages. When there is no a package server assigned in an environment (only the SMP server is the only one), the SMP server will provide the codebases for packages, even when the package service is NOT installed on the SMP server. If you are setting up a new Site Server, install the package service on it and you should remove the package service from the SMP Server if you have it installed in the past. The general best practice is to keep the SMP server out of being designated as a package server and offload that responsibility to a Site Server. As mentioned before, the SMP server is a package server by nature since the packages are usually originated from the SMP server and then replicated to package servers in the environment.

To remove Package Service from the SMP server:

• Go to Settings > Notification Server > Site Server Settings.
• Expand Site Services on the left and then highlight Site Servers. On the right, you'll see all your site servers.
• Highlight the SMP server, and click the pencil to edit it.
• Remove the check box from Package Services if it's listed and complete the wizard.

Finally, Package Server is not generally needed on the SMP server in a single server environment.  The package "source" locations are also delivered out as code-bases to clients requesting packages. The only possible exception to this might be in a hierarchy where the child location is very small for whatever reason and Package services are required for replication.  

Regarding if there is no a package server in the same Site as the SMP Server, should I make the SMP Server as a Package Server too?
If you configure your Sites to go to your Site Server for all other subnets, and if there is no a package server assigned to the same subnet / site as the SMP server, the client machines will try the SMP server first since it is the only one that belongs to that Site. If you have a package server assigned to a Site and the package server is not available for whatever reason, after certain period of time will switch to the SMP Server to obtain the packages (we have a core setting called "MaxAgentDownloadTryingTimeMins" that specify for how long we keep trying to get a package from the designed package server on the site).

If no sites are defined for a package server, SMP Server uses the following rules:

¦ Notification Server first tries to find any site servers on the same subnet as the requesting computer. If any are found, these site servers are returned to the Symantec Management Agent.
¦ If no site servers are in the same subnet as the requesting computer, all site servers are returned to the Symantec Management Agent.
¦ If no site servers are defined (only the SMP server is available and no other server has been setup as a package server) exists as in the same subnet as the requesting computer, the SMP Server is returned to the Symantec Management Agent.

Additional Information

175121 "Package Server selection - assignment on ITMS 8.5"