Specifications

Once an agent is installed on a system, you never need to use a third-party deployment tool to update
anything on that client.
Figure 6-1 One agent to communicate with many products
McAfee Agent modularity
The advantage to the agent design is modularity. This modular design allows you to add new security
offerings to your environment, as your needs change, using the same agent framework. McAfee can
build a standard on how policies, events, and tasks, for example, are passed to endpoint solutions.
You never have to worry about communication or which ports to open when you add a new product
such as Host Data Loss Protection to your endpoint. All those items are controlled by the agent. Agent
modularity also allows the development teams to work more efficiently and integrate new products
into the McAfee ePO server faster. The advantages to this modular architecture are:
• One component provides communication back to the server instead of multiple solutions with their
own proprietary communication language.
• You have the flexibility to choose which products fit your organization instead of being dictated by
your security vendor.
• You can add controlled patching of individual products. For example, if there is a patch for the
Endpoint Encryption product VirusScan Enterprise cannot be affected by the patch.
• The patch process is consistent across all products since the McAfee ePO server controls the process.
• You add new products as they are released by McAfee and its partners.
• You can leverage the same McAfee agent for partner products instead of adding more overhead.
See Partner Products for details.
Deploying agents
You can deploy the McAfee Agent multiple ways. See McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator 4.5 Product Guide
for details. But there are a few concepts that can help you to understand.
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McAfee Agent
Deploying agents
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McAfee
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ePolicy Orchestrator
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4.0 and 4.5 Best Practices Guide