Specifications

Move McAfee Agents between servers

Before the release of ePolicy Orchestrator 4.5, many customers wanted an upgrade path that would

allow them to start with a new database, while retaining their old settings. Version 4.5 of the software

introduced the ability to move agents from one server to another

Moving your agents from the old McAfee ePO server to the new McAfee ePO server is a compromise

between copying your existing ePolicy Orchestrator SQL database to your new McAfee ePO server and

having the McAfee Agents connect to the new server to populate the new, clean, database.

Using versions of ePolicy Orchestrator software prior to release 4.5, many users tried to find a

compromise between starting from a new installation with a clean database but still not losing all their

old settings that they created over time. This compromise was difficult because it often required

extensive rebuilding of policies and tasks on the new McAfee ePO server using the process in Move the

server. All the following steps were needed to try to mimic the older server:

Install a new McAfee ePO server. See McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator 4.5 Installation Guide for

detailed instructions.

Export and import the following from the old McAfee ePO server to the newly built McAfee ePO server:

• Export your product policy files in XML.

• Export your tree structure in a txt file (ePO version 4.5 only).

• Export any custom queries you have created.

• Import your tree structure on your new McAfee ePO server.

• Import the product policies and make sure they get assigned to the right groups.

• Import any custom queries that you want to preserve.

All of the following items, you previously configured, must be re-created manually:

• Client tasks including deployment, update, and on demand tasks

• Server tasks, including the McAfee content pull and replication

• McAfee ePO server administrators and permission sets

This is a chance to revisit policies and tasks that you have been using

and could use some changing to improve efficiency.

Your new McAfee ePO server is ready to use if the previous items are completed and you have

confirmed and validated your settings. Now it is time to start moving agents to the new McAfee ePO

server. The traditional way of doing this was to redeploy a new McAfee Agent from the new McAfee

ePO server which would point your agents to the new server. This is inefficient because you already

have a working agent on all your clients, but the agents are still pointing to your old McAfee ePO

server. To fix this use the Transfer Systems feature on ePolicy Orchestrator 4.5, or later, servers to

move your agents from one McAfee ePO server to another.

Installation and upgrade of ePolicy Orchestrator software

Move McAfee Agents between servers

McAfee

ePolicy Orchestrator

4.0 and 4.5 Best Practices Guide