Endpoint Security and Compliance Management Design Guide Using IBM Tivoli Endpoint Manager

Chapter 6. Phase I: Tivoli Endpoint Manager platform design and implementation 235

Figure 6-14 Download traffic comparison

The Taipei IT team defines the following scheduled Task, BES Client Setting:

Download Throttling. The team limits Tivoli Endpoint Manager download

bandwidth from 8 am and then disables the setting at 6 pm. This setting

minimizes the effect of patching traffic during the site operating hours.

236 Endpoint Security and Compliance Management Design Guide Using IBM Tivoli Endpoint Manager

6.3.3 Maintenance plan

Both the Tivoli Endpoint Manager database and Tivoli Endpoint Manager Server

need periodic maintenance to ensure that they run at peak performance. Daily

and weekly backups are also required as part of the disaster recovery plan.

Database maintenance

The required maintenance tasks for the Tivoli Endpoint Manager database do not

differ much from standard maintenance tasks for any other database server. For

Tivoli Endpoint Manager Server to run at peak performance, up-to-date database

indexing is important. Operators can shrink the database as part of the regular

maintenance tasks, but an index update is required after shrinking the database.

Tivoli Endpoint Manager Server maintenance

After extensive use of Tivoli Endpoint Manager, the system can experience

degraded performance due to various causes, for example, unreported endpoints

or abuse of Custom Sites and groups.

The overall policy grants only the IT team in the UK the privilege to create

Custom Sites and computer groups, so that Custom Sites and computer groups

can be controlled and managed centrally. Dedicated maintenance engineers are

responsible to check for open Actions, and stop these Actions when these

Actions are no longer needed. The maintenance engineers also run the BigFix

Computer Remover on a nightly basis. The maintenance engineers run the

BigFix Audit Trail Cleaner biweekly to clean up data in the Tivoli Endpoint

Manager database that is no longer needed. The following steps show a typical

sequential maintenance workflow:

1. Run the BigFix Computer Remover and BigFix Audit Trail Cleaner.

2. Shrink the database.

3. Update the database index.

Tivoli Endpoint Manager utilities: Tivoli Endpoint Manager utilities are

available for public download at the Tivoli Endpoint Manager wiki website:

https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/mydeveloperworks/wikis/home?lang=

en#/wiki/Tivoli%20Endpoint%20Manager/page/TEM%20Utilities

Users must understand that the tools can cause serious impact on your Tivoli

Endpoint Manager system if misused. Follow the instructions carefully and

always back up your Tivoli Endpoint Manager database.