Answers to FAQ's:
Question 1 - I've got quite a mix of computers on my network, and I’m not sure of the OS
versions, application, etc. How will ANSA be deployed?
Answer 1 Our engineers will provide you with a questionnaire prior to installation of the
ANSA suite of products. Once these determinations are made, it is easy to deploy
the application throughout your network.
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Question 2 - When deploying custom packages, can I send out software packages as well as patches?
Answer 2 Yes. For ANSA, anything that can be made executable (exe, bat, jobstreams, etc)
can be deployed as a custom patch. This means software packages (new installs) as well as one-time password changes can be deployed to any set of clients on the network. It’s simply a matter of creating the executable or stream of commands, defining it to ANSA, and deploying it via the scheduling process.
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Question 3 - We want to be able to test patches in a small subset of our network. How does
ANSA allow this?
Answer 3 ANSA will allow you to define a separate Inoculation Server, which actively deploys patches to your small subset of clients. Additionally, you could set up a separate test group (by using grouping functionality within the user interface) which will allow you to create a subset to which you can direct specific actions (patch deployment, asset scanning, etc). In this way, you can control how and when patches are deployed based on your organizations’ needs.
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Question 4 - I discovered a patch, which when it was installed, caused a problem with one of
our homegrown applications. What can I do?
Answer 4 Since the vast majority of Microsoft patches, in addition to patch installation, provide for removal of that same patch, ANSA will allow the uninstall package to be deployed across your network. For other operating systems, assuming an uninstall mechanism is available, ANSA can be utilized to deploy the uninstall package.
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Question 5 - While a patch was being installed, one of my users shut down the desktop, halting installation of the patch. What will happen?
Answer 5 The ANSA client, next time the machine is connected to the network, will attempt
to install the patch until it is successful in doing so. If the patch, based on progress, has failed, it will be inserted in the failed queue where it can be redeployed from through the common scheduling mechanism.
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Question 6 - We would like to have critical patches tested before we get them. Does ANSA
provide for this?
Answer 6 Yes. The Professional Services branch of ANSA can replicate your environment and test patches prior to releasing them to your organization. We will mirror your environment to the extent you feel necessary, as well as testing any patches to that same extent before releasing them to your system administrators.
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Question 7 - I’m concerned about the timely deployment of patches within our organization.
How does ANSA address this concern?
Answer 7 ANSA guarantees that any patches made available from Microsoft are available to its users within 12 hours of that release, assuming no custom testing is necessary. For other vendors, ANSA will turn around all available public patches within that same time period (12 hours). As a hosted solution, ANSA retains permanent staff to constantly oversee and maintain the Global Update Repository, which is the source from which patches are ultimately deployed to all ANSA users. Once the patches are made available to ANSA users, it is the responsibility of the system
administrators to deploy them via the ANSA framework provided.
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Question 8 - How large is the ANSA agent that will reside on each of my client computers
Answer 8 The footprint of the ANSA client agent is extremely small, less than 575 KB (in dormant mode). When asked to, the agent will expand and contract, depending on functionality invoked. Example: when scanning the agent machine, the agent itself may expand to up to 12 megabytes; when done, it will contract back down to dormant mode size (this entire process will take less than 1 minute in most cases).
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Question 9 - Occasionally, a user will update software or otherwise change the environment on their desktop or laptop machine. As a result of this, if a patch is negated on that machine, will ANSA recognize this condition?
Answer 9 Yes, the next time the agent logs onto the network, the ANSA server will know that the agent has become out of sync with the server. The agent will scan itself (based on policy) and the ANSA console will show that the patch has become available for the agent machine.
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Troubleshooting Solutions:
Problem 1 - I’m having trouble installing the evaluation version. I get a SQL access error. What do I do?
Solution 1 Check the following: make sure that the connection string in the following two places is identical: c:\inetpub\wwwroot\ansaui\xml\webdb.config, c:\ansa\controller\config.xml (for the controller). Additionally, make sure that the password for the database ANSA in SQL Enterprise Manager is the same as the password set in both the above files. Make sure that in Enterprise Manager, security properties for the local SQL Server Group are set to SQL Server and Windows authentication. We’ve also seen (very rarely) issues where, in a Windows 2003 Server environment, when the 2003 Server OS is Enterprise Version, that there appear to be IIS lockdowns where our installed web service does not work (access errors). Modifying the access security to the machine, particularly the web service installed, will rectify this issue. Also, reinstalling the OS (to non-enterprise) will fix the problem as well.
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Problem 2 - I install an agent but it doesn’t show on the console. What’s up?
Solution 2 Typically, this is due to a typo in the c:\ansa\agent\config.xml file. Review the install directions for the file and make sure that the ip address for the controller is accurate (as well as the port setting, which is typically 9311).
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Problem 3 - I’m trying to re-implement my SQL script – I get an error that the database cannot be dropped.
Solution 3 Make sure that the pulldown for the database that is currently open (at the top of the screen near the middle, in Query Analyzer) is NOT set to ANSA.
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Problem 4 - I keep getting timeout errors in my ANSA Network Scan. How do I fix?
Solution 4 Go to IIS Service Manager (in administrative tools on the machine where the ANSA web service is installed). Click down into the default web site, right click to get to properties. Set the connection timeout to a higher value than it currently is. Then, click on the tab home directory, and within Application Settings, click on Configuration. Click tab Options, and set both Session Timeout, and ASP script timeout to higher values. As a last resort, scan a smaller range of begin/end ip addresses.
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Problem 5 - My Remote Deploy keeps giving me errors: unable to create drive A:\, B:\, etc.
What have I done wrong?
Solution 5 Most likely, your credentials are insufficient for doing remote deploy. Remote Deploy tries to create a share on the local machine (the one hosting the web application), and if it cannot, you will see the error, which generally speaking, is a permission error. However, if the remote machine has file sharing disabled, you will encounter this error as well, so check that. As well, make sure that the credentials you’ve supplied are sufficient to log onto and create the c:\ansa\agent folder on the remote machine.
Questions, can you access the machine? - go to a browser and type in \\machinename\c$ - if not, remote deploy cannot function correctly
Can you create folders on the remote machine?
Have you typed in the credentials correctly? (when using a domain admin to remote deploy, make sure your enter domain\administrator as the username in the remote deploy dialog).
to install the patch until it is successful in doing so. If the patch, based on progress, has failed, it will be inserted in the failed queue where it can be redeployed from through the common scheduling mechanism.
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