Altiris Task clients do not automatically re-assign themselves to the closest or lowest-load task server

Symantec recommends that you run a task to re-assign task clients on a regular basis, such as weekly or monthly--depending on how mobile your environment is or how much provisioning you're doing..  A slight modification to this was made in SMP 7.1 where now they will re-check every 24 hours, but this method is not very reliable.  They may also reassign themselves after a delayed time of not being able to connect to their assigned task server..  A simple task to "Reset Task Agent" sent to all clients can keep load balancing fresh, and mobile users assigned appropriately. 

Both the 24 hour re-check and running this task is important to remember when adding new Task Servers, for otherwise, they will not automatically pick up new clients.  Additionally, since the NS is the "fail over" for task agents, so doing this can "pull" clients off the NS.

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=HOWTO48411

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thx,
Gert

Speed up Altiris Web Console

The Symantec Management Console enhanced views let you configure specific settings. You can configure specific search fields so that you can see your results as you type them. You can configure these same search fields so that you can see your results only after you press Enter. You can configure the enhanced views to use IME (Input Method Editor) so that you can input double-byte characters in these views. You can also configure the number of computers and software that appear in the results list. If you manage a very large number of computers, this setting can improve the load time.

To configure the enhanced Symantec Management Console views settings

1. In the Symantec Management Console, on the Settings menu, click Console > Enhanced Views.

2. In the Enhanced Views Settings dialog box, configure the following settings:

Search	As you type - This option lets you see the results as you type the requirements into the search field. The default setting is As you type. After you press Enter - This option lets you see your results only after you type the requirements into the search field and then press Enter. These search options affect the following search fields: Computers view, center pane search field, which includes all saved and filtered searches Software view, center pane search field, which includes all saved and filtered searches
Allow IME (Input Method Editor) for entering double-byte language characters	Turns on IME support for enhanced console views and for the First Time Setup portal. When this option is checked, you can use IME to input double-byte characters on these pages.
Limit Computer and Software result lists to:	Limits the number of computers or software that can appear in a results list. If your environment has a hierarchy with thousands of computers, the lists can take a long time to load and may even timeout. This limit sets how many rows the query should return. The default setting is 20,000, but you can reduce this setting to improve load times. If there are additional rows, the last row indicates that there are more records and lets you load them.

http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO63148

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thx,
Gert

Slow Altiris Web console - Improve Performance

Symantec Solutions based on the Symantec Management Platform can be really demanding on memory, which can have a very adverse impact on production server (systems with an few hundred agent workload) because the Application Pool default configuration causes memory attrition.

The memory attrition is most noticeable in the Web Console, but can also be seen on the server itself with a CPU usage reaching 75 to 100% by the w3wp.exe and a process memory consumption above the 1.1 GiB mark.

This problem is due to a limitation within the .Net framework itself, and varies depending on the count of objects managed by the framework (between 1.1 and 1.3GiB of memory). Once .Net reaches the memory ceiling it spends a lot of time trying to find memory via garbage collection or other internal processing which has a direct impact on the handling of http requests and crafting the http responses.

To avoid this type of problems and optimize the web console experience Symantec recommends implementing additional application pools to partition the Altiris web-applications that are consuming a significant amount of memory or that can be impacted by sharing the default application pool. This way we increase the memory available to the Symantec web-application from 1 x 1.1 GiB to 5 or 6 x 1.1 GiB (which is never used in full with the new configuration)

Scripted configuration of the Application pools:

Here is a script that will implement the application pools as described above:

@echo off
set appcmd=%comspec%\..\inetsrv\appcmd

%appcmd% add apppool -name:Altiris-NS-Agent
%appcmd% set apppool Altiris-NS-Agent -managedPipelineMode:Classic
%appcmd% set app "Default Web Site/Altiris/NS/Agent" -applicationPool:Atiris-NS-Agent

%appcmd% add apppool -name:TaskManagement
%appcmd% set apppool TaskManagement -managedPipelineMode:Classic
%appcmd% set app "Default Web Site/Altiris/TaskManagement" -applicationPool:TaskManagement
%appcmd% set app "Default Web Site/Altiris/ClientTaskServer" -applicationPool:TaskManagement

%appcmd% add apppool -name:ActivityCenter
%appcmd% set apppool ActivityCenter -managedPipelineMode:Classic
%appcmd% set app "Default Web Site/Altiris/ActivityCenter" -applicationPool:ActivityCenter

%appcmd% add apppool -name:PatchManagement
%appcmd% set apppool PatchManagement -managedPipelineMode:Classic
%appcmd% set app "Default Web Site/Altiris/PatchManagement" -applicationPool:PatchManagement
%appcmd% set app "Default Web Site/Altiris/PatchManagementCore" -applicationPool:PatchManagement
%appcmd% set app "Default Web Site/Altiris/PatchManagementMac" -applicationPool:PatchManagement

%appcmd% add apppool -name:SoftwarePortal
%appcmd% set apppool SoftwarePortal -managedPipelineMode:Classic
%appcmd% set app "Default Web Site/Altiris/SoftwarePortal" -applicationPool:SoftwarePortal

%appcmd% add apppool -name:ITAnalytics
%appcmd% set apppool ITAnalytics -managedPipelineMode:Classic
%appcmd% set app "Default Web Site/Altiris/ITAnalytics" -applicationPool:ITAnalytics
%appcmd% set app "Default Web Site/Altiris/ITAnalyticsCSMP" -applicationPool:ITAnalytics
%appcmd% set app "Default Web Site/Altiris/ITAnalyticsSEP" -applicationPool:ITAnalytics

Here is a script that will revert the application pools to the default App pool

@echo off




set appcmd=%comspec%\..\inetsrv\appcmd





%appcmd% set app "Default Web Site/Altiris/NS/Agent" -applicationPool:"Classic .NET AppPool"





%appcmd% set app "Default Web Site/Altiris/TaskManagement" -applicationPool"Classic .NET AppPool"





%appcmd% set app "Default Web Site/Altiris/ClientTaskServer" -applicationPool"Classic .NET AppPool"





%appcmd% set app "Default Web Site/Altiris/ActivityCenter" -applicationPool:"Classic .NET AppPool"





%appcmd% set app "Default Web Site/Altiris/PatchManagement" -applicationPool:"Classic .NET AppPool"





%appcmd% set app "Default Web Site/Altiris/PatchManagementCore" -applicationPool:"Classic .NET Apppool"





%appcmd% set app "Default Web Site/Altiris/PatchManagementMac" -applicationPool:"Classic .NET Apppool"





%appcmd% set app "Default Web Site/Altiris/SoftwarePortal" -applicationPool:"Classic .NET AppPool"





%appcmd% set app "Default Web Site/Altiris/ITAnalytics" -applicationPool:"Classic .NET AppPool"





%appcmd% set app "Default Web Site/Altiris/ITAnalyticsCSMP" -applicationPool:"Classic .NET AppPool"





%appcmd% set app "Default Web Site/Altiris/ITAnalyticsSEP" -applicationPool:"Classic .NET AppPool"

Credit goes to : http://www.symantec.com/connect/articles/how-implement-custom-application-pools-smp-improve-web-console-performance

Please be so kind to click on an Advertisement  if you find this information useful. It allows me to keep buying those nifty tech tools :-)

thx,


Gert