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Installing Management Center for Cisco Security Agents 5.2
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Chapter 2 Deployment Planning
Scalable Deployments
Software Considerations • CSA MC is only supported on Windows 2003 R2 Standard and Enterprise
operating systems. Only Hardware Configurations 1 and 2 (referenced in
previous tables) support Windows 2003 R2 Standard. Hardware
Configuration 3 with 8GB RAM requires Windows 2003 R2 Enterprise to
take advantage of the increased memory. Refer to the Microsoft web site
product information section for details.
• To support any deployment over 1,000 agents, you should use Microsoft SQL
Server 2005 in lieu of Microsoft SQL Server Express. Only Hardware
Configuration 1 supports Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Workgroup or Standard
editions with their 4GB RAM limitation.
Note Your memory consumption needs should dictate your CSA MC operating
system choice, i.e. Windows 2003 R2 Standard and Enterprise.
Configuration Recommendations for ScalabilityIf you intend to scale to a deployment of approximately 100,000 agents, there are
some configuration recommendations you should consider.
Set Polling Interval
With 100,000 agents deployed across your enterprise, you want to ensure that
no more than 20 agents are communicating with the MC approximately every
second or so. Therefore, with a deployment of this size, it is recommended
that you set the polling interval to no less than 1 hour. You can have some
systems polling in every hour and others polling in later than that. But on
average, a 1 hour or higher polling interval is appropriate. Be sure to have the
polling hint functionality enabled, as well.
Use Content Engines
For large deployments, it is highly recommended that you use content engines
with transparent web caching. It makes sense to direct groups of agents to
different content engines in large deployment scenarios. Content engines
reduce the load on the MC by caching rule downloads and software updates.