Altiris Client Task Agent Communication overview

Products

• IT Management Suite
• Client Management Suite

Issue/Introduction

Once the Symantec Management Agent is functional (has a GUID, received policies), what happens regarding the Altiris Client Task Agent?

Environment

ITMS 8.x

Resolution

This is the simplified flow of what happens:

1. Task agent talks with SMP server to see which task server it should communicate with
2. Establishes a connection to the preferred task server returned by SMP
   1. By default you will get the FQDN Name of the Task server
   2. You can change this behaviour by editing the NSPreferredHost setting in NSConfigurator
3. Listens to the task server
4. Task can:
   1. Install / uninstall Software
   2. Run scripts
   3. Gather inventory
   4. Install or uninstall a plugin

The big selling point of Task server is that it is much faster than policy based deployments. You can get activity in seconds versus minutes or even hours by deploying with a Policy.

Additional Information

"Symantec Management Agent Communication overview" (KB 256573)