Controlling automated Altiris Agent rollouts

Article ID: 25786

In large environments, it is often advantageous to be able to control how many resources will be targeted during the automated push install of the Altiris Agent. Additionally, old computer registrations, laptops that are off the network and other unavailable resources can add unnecessary load to this process. What is the best way to deal with these issues?

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Answer

In order to provide for these functions, a custom collection must be created for the Push install to utilize. This collection should be built up using the following SQL statements (not all will be applicable to everyone).

#SELECT TOP x limits the total size of the collection
SELECT TOP x Guid FROM vResource  
#Unmanaged computers
WHERE IsManaged=0
AND ResourceTypeGuid LIKE ‘493435F7-3B17-4C4C-B07F-C23E7AB7781F’
#Agent push has not been attempted and failed in last 1 day (note that this can be altered to suit requirements)            
AND Guid NOT IN (SELECT DISTINCT TargetComputerGuid FROM Evt_Push_Agent_Install_Service                     
WHERE DATEDIFF(day,_eventTime, GETDATE()) < 1 AND CopyService LIKE ‘Failed%’)
#Specify Target Operating Systems eg XP
AND Guid IN (SELECT _ResourceGuid FROM Inv_AeX_AC_Identification WHERE [OS Name] LIKE ‘%XP%’)
#Select Target Active Directory Domain eg DOMAIN
AND Guid IN (SELECT _ResourceGuid FROM Inv_AeX_AC_Identification WHERE [Domain] = ‘DOMAIN’)
#Select target subnet eg 192.168
AND Guid IN (SELECT Guid FROM vComputer Where [IP Address] LIKE ‘192.168.%’)

Note: The Operating System, Domain, and Subnet could also be controlled through the use of constant parameters.
Should other criteria be required to control the push installation, these lines could be used as templates for those activities. It is recommended that information that is not held in the Inv_AeX_AC_Identification table not be used for this activity as the information filling these tables may not be available at the time of push.
Using this query as the basis of the automated agent push installation will allow a greater degree of flexibility in:

• The maximum number of computers to be targeted during a single push task.
• Temporarily remove non-responsive or stale computers from server activities.
• Greater granularity of control over exactly what criteria computer resources must meet in order to receive the automated Altiris Agent push installation