Pulls and Replications

[JimmyZ1]

Is there still a problem with running NAI pulls at the same time as a Repository replication? Does anyone have any suggestions or examples on how they have this schedule setup?

Just upgraded to 3.5 and everything is looking good.

Doh!!

 

[VictorySabre]

I've got both my pulls and replication running on an hourly basis, but staggered by 30 minutes. So a pull would occur at 9:30, 10:30, 11:30, etc while the replication occurs at 10:00, 11:00, 12:00.

Hourly replication isn't necessary now that Global Updating occurs on my ePO Server...maybe have a weekly Replication job would be sufficient.

The only reason why I have hourly replication is because that is what I had on ePO 2.5 (when Global Updating wasn't possible) and after I upgraded to ePO 3.0.2, all my pull/replication jobs appear to be hidden and can't be modified or deleted. McAfee Tech Support couldn't solve the problem so I'm just living with the problem for now.

 

[JimmyZ1]

how many repositories do you have?

Doh!!

 

[VictorySabre]

I've got one Master Repository that comes with the ePO Server. Two UNCSite Distributed Repository that will eventually be deleted. (Just keeping it there for some backwards compatibility for clients that may still be on older VirusScan software that I'm not aware/in-control of.)
I've currently got four SuperAgent Repositories located at different offices, which may grow when we add more of our remote offices to the system.

In my case, during a Global Update, I monitored how long it would take to replicate new DATs from my ePO Server to the SuperAgent Repositories and it didn't run for more than 20 minutes. This means my pulls can occur 30 minutes after a replication and they wouldn't deny each other out.

Now, if I have a lot more repositories, I would be in trouble because there wouldn't be enough time to replicate the files. At the same time, because my ePO Server appears to be "messed" up, I cannot change my pull/replicate jobs at all because there is nothing on my screen that will allow me to change the jobs...possibly due to the ePO Server upgrade from 2.5.1 to 3.0.2.

If your ePO Server 3.5 is working fine (and if mine was too), I would:
* Set the server to allow Global Updates
* Set up a SuperAgent with Repository at each remote office
* Configure on the ePO Server a pull that runs every hour for a total of 22 hours (eg. Every hour between 12 AM to 10 PM) Once the server pulls down a new DAT file, it can automatically replicate the DATs for you to the repositories and then do a Global Update wakeup call to get all clients to do a DAT update.
* Configure a full replication job (either weekly or daily) that runs somewhere duing the last 2 hours that the pull job isn't running at (Eg. 10:30 PM to 11:59 PM) This will make sure nothing gets messed up during the automatic replication that occurs during a Global Update and is more of an insurance.

And if the time it takes to replicate to all your repositories is longer than 30 minutes, which you would need to monitor, you can then change your pull job to run every 1.5 hours, for example.

 

[JimmyZ1]

yeah, I have 177 repositories... so I really need to schedule the replications.... I've timed it several time and it takes over 2 hrs,

I wonder if I can alter the replica.log and pull out everything except the dat files, epo agent and virusscan out of the replication process... will 3.5 scale down the replication for you?

Doh!!

 

[VictorySabre]

WOW!!! That is a lot of repositories!! When you say it takes over two hours to complete replication, is that a full replication or incremental replication?

If 2 hours is for a full replication, how much time does it take for an incremental? I know my incrementals don't take very long but a full replication does take a fairly long time. During an incremental replication, it should only be replicating the new changes/files that were detected, such as DAT files, engine files, and any updates that may be downloaded from McAfee during a pull. I don't believe ePO Agent, VirusScan and other installation related files are transferred during an incremental. Those are transferred in a full replication.

I believe a Global Update performs just an incremental replication as well.

I wonder if there is any way to speed up replication to all your repositories by getting another location to download and distribute DAT updates so that you can at least split the load of the replication in half?

 

[JimmyZ1]

I think you can, you just have to keep track of that replica.log, That's what it uses to determine the number of files it needs to replicate.... might beable to alter it, I'll try it on my test server....

Doh!!