3.11 Content Management

ZENworks provides a number of different methods for distributing content to managed devices. This allows you to use the method(s) that are appropriate for your environment and management goals. The supported delivery methods include:

An important improvement in Content Management is the ability to define content replication at the bundle-folder level. This ability provides several advantages over previous releases of ZENworks because it allows groups of applications or patches to be sent to sites with a few mouse clicks.

To define the Satellite devices to which the content located in the folder should be replicated, click the Details hyperlink of any bundle folder and click the Settings tab. If bundles are subsequently created in the folder, the content synchronization rules of the bundle folder are automatically applied.

In the following screen shot, all bundles in the Human Resources bundle folder are sent to the Stockholm remote office. A bundle created in the Human Resources bundle folder is automatically marked as Include for the Stockholm location.

The technique of configuring content synchronization at the bundle-folder level is particularly useful when dealing with patches. As patches are stored in bundle folders organized by the vendor, and then by month or year of release, groups of related patches can be sent to a given site in one operation. For example, automatically synchronizing all Microsoft patches for the previous month is extremely easy because this can be accomplished by configuring the relevant ZENworks Patch Management bundle folder, as displayed in the following screen shot:

Pre-caching is a mechanism to cache the data on all the servers and satellites mentioned as part of the content servers list. We can define precaching for Windows, Linux, and Mac content. Pre-caching can be configured in ZCC > Configuration > Bundle, policy, and Content > Pre-cache Content.

The content will always be available on the server where the content was created/uploaded. If the content is not pre-cached, then the content will be served on-demand to other servers. On-demand content has a configurable expiry time. In the worst-case scenario if the server where the content was created/uploaded goes down and content on other servers got cleaned up due to expiry, then the content may not be available on any servers. So, it's recommended to pre-cache the content on more than two servers to support fault tolerance.

By default, the system update content will be pre-cached to all the Primary Servers in the zone. The System Update checkbox determines if the system update content should be pre-cached to all content Satellite Servers or none. The checkbox is effective only for the subsequent system updates that will be imported into the zone. If you want to replicate the system Update content for the already imported system Update in the zone, select the system-update check box and run zman ccpe <Satellite_Guid> to replicate the content to the satellite server.

Before considering content management, you should organize bundles into separate folders for ease of administration. Bundles can be grouped into folders by function such as Productivity Applications Collaboration Applications, or by business function, such as Finance Applications and Human Resources Applications. Introducing content control at the bundle-folder level means that the decision of how to organize bundles can also take into account the locations from where the applications will be accessed. For example, if a particular remote location has specific application needs unique to that site, consider creating a bundle folder for that location, thus allowing the content settings to be configured once for the core applications for that site.

If bundles are to be presented to users in the Windows Start menu, the default folder structure is a mirror of your bundle folder structure. For example, if the Micro Focus Vibe Login bundle is associated with a user or device and instructed to be included in the Start menu, the Start Menu displays Core Applications > Collaboration Applications > Micro Focus Pulse Login.

This behavior can be overwritten in each bundle object, allowing the administrator to define for each bundle what the Windows Start menu structure should look like. This process can be cumbersome for each bundle. Therefore, you must consider the balance needs of content replication, ease of administration, and end-user presentation to decide about the folder structure for your bundle objects.

ZENworks contains power mechanisms for granular control over content that should be hosted at specific locations. When you distribute content to Satellite locations, the concept of creating a window of opportunity for synchronization becomes very important. A window of opportunity involves defining the amount of time and the amount of bandwidth available to transfer a particular piece of content. In the versions of ZENworks prior to ZENworks 10 SP3, all content was treated the same way. However, in later versions of ZENworks, several content types are exposed in ZENworks Control Center. The list of content types have been expanded since.

The following figure highlights the specific content types that you can configure in ZENworks.

After you have defined what content should be available, the next stage is to define how and when it gets to the defined locations. For each content type, the administrator can specify the window of opportunity for synchronization, the recurrence period, and the bandwidth to be consumed during these operations. Administrators can now ensure that other services at remote sites are not affected by content delivery. If the window of opportunity and throttled bandwidth rate is not sufficient to completely synchronize all content, the process resumes from where it stopped when the window of opportunity opens again.

The following screen shot shows that Critical Security Patches have the opportunity to synchronize every 4 hours for up to 2 hours, consuming only 300 KB/s during the transfer.

In this scenario, the customer wants to ensure that critical security patches are available promptly but still wants to protect bandwidth at the same time. If the content to be synchronized takes only 10 minutes to complete, the window of opportunity closes after 10 minutes. If the transfer takes more than 2 hours, the remainder of the content is synchronized 2 hours later when the next window of opportunity opens, because of the 4-hour interval.

Before defining the content rules for a given location, you must collect the following information:

The following screen shot shows that each content type can be configured with its own window of opportunity so that it can accommodate any customer requirement.

ZENworks offers the administrator significant flexibility in managing content synchronization, ensuring that content is always available at only the relevant locations, and more importantly that ZENworks does not consume all the bandwidth during this process.

ZENworks allows you to easily promote any managed device to a Satellite device with the roles of content repository, inventory and status collection point, imaging server, or an authentication point for local Active Directory or eDirectory instances. These roles are defined centrally in ZENworks Control Center and are applied automatically when the device checks in next.

Consider a situation where you need to launch a new site for management that is behind a very slow or saturated link. ZENworks can easily automate the delivery of content and throttle bandwidth to get the data needed to that location without adversely affecting other services hosted at that location. However, if the location needs GBs of application content, this process might take days or even weeks if small windows of opportunities and low-bandwidth throttles have been configured. If network providers charge customers on the basis of network utilization, sending large amount of content across WAN links should be avoided. ZENworks 10 Configuration Management SP3 provides the ability to export the content required by a Satellite device. Subsequently, the content can be transferred to a site through removable media, and imported into the content repository of the local Satellite. The process can save the customer unnecessary bandwidth consumption along with the associated time and financial costs.

The process for offline content synchronization is as follows:

After this process is complete, setting the content synchronization schedule instructs ZENworks to ensure all subsequent delta changes are automatically synchronized.