Specifications

of content into each branch. Then the different versions can be rolled out to a selected group of test

machines before a full deployment to the entire environment. See Validating DAT and Other Content

with ePO 4.5 PDF document on the KnowledgeBase.

Disabling master repository client pulls

To improve the McAfee ePO server performance, if you have distributed repositories, you might need

to disable master repository client pulls.

Many customers perform their pull task earlier in the day, for example 1 p.m. but they do not replicate

their repositories until later in the evening, for example 7 p.m. They mistakenly think they are

reducing replication bandwidth by replicating during off hours instead of critical business hours. This

can actually cause problems.

If the master repository pulls new content there is a version timestamp that informs the agents that

the master repository is up to date but the distributed repositories are now out of date. This causes

the agents to go to the master repository, no matter how far away it might be, as one of their update

locations, and they ignore their local, nearby repository since it does not have the latest content. This

can have a negative bandwidth impact during business hours. Just the opposite of the original goal.

To avoid this problem:

• Disable the master repository as an update option (described below) so that your agents are not

allowed to pull any content from the master repository. Instead they are forced to wait until the

distributed repositories receive the latest content during replication.

• When you perform your pull to the master repository immediately follow the pull with a replication

to your distributed repositories.

• Wait until the evening to do your pull and replication if replication bandwidth use is a concern

during business hours.

Disable master repository client pulls if you have distributed repositories.

Task

Open the Policy Catalog, select McAfee Agents from the Product list, then select General from the

Category list.

Click Edit Setting and the Repositories tab.

Server tasks

Create an automatic content pull and replication

McAfee

ePolicy Orchestrator

4.0 and 4.5 Best Practices Guide