A Satellite is a device that can perform some of the roles that a ZENworks Primary Server normally performs, including authentication, information collection, content distribution, and imaging. The following sections contain more information about each role:
When users logged in to previous versions of ZENworks, they were authenticated to the Management Zone by contacting the ZENworks Primary Server, which in turn contacted the user source that contains the users.
Satellite devices with the Authentication role can now speed the authentication process by spreading the workload among various devices and by performing authentication locally to managed devices. You can have multiple Satellite devices with the Authentication role. In addition, each Satellite with the Authentication role can have multiple user sources configured and each Satellite can have multiple connections to each user source to provide failover.
When a managed device uses a Satellite for authentication, the Satellite issues an authentication token to the managed device so that it can authenticate to the Management Zone using SSL.
On the managed device, the Authentication module is inactive until you promote the managed device to be a Satellite with the Authentication role or until the Authentication role is added to an existing Satellite.
NOTE:If a Satellite device performing the Authentication role is a member of a domain, all managed devices authenticating to that Satellite must be members of the same domain.
If you want to improve information roll?up access for a group of devices to minimize traffic to the ZENworks Primary Server that is hosting the ZENworks database, you can enable the Collection role on a device. For example, if you have devices that are rolling up information to a Primary Server outside of their network segment, you can minimize network traffic by enabling the Collection role on a device within the network segment to accept the information from the other devices in that segment. That Collection role device is then the only device from that segment that is rolling up information to the Primary Server.
You can enable the Collection role on any managed device. The Collection role requires only the Collection role module that is installed with the ZENworks Adaptive Agent. The module is inactive until you enable the Collection role on the managed device.
When you enable a Collection role on a device, you can assign any ZENworks Primary Server as its parent server. The Collection role device uploads information only to its parent Primary Server. If the parent Primary Server is not a child of another Primary Server, it writes the information directly to the database. If the parent Primary Server is a child of another Primary Server, it passes the information up to its parent Primary Server, which writes the information to the database.
A Satellite with the Collection role collects inventory information and messages (errors, warning, informational, and so forth), then rolls that information up to its parent Primary Server, which in turn either writes to the database directly or passes the information to its parent Primary Server, which does the database writing. The role includes a roll-up schedule that you can edit.
On the managed device, the Collection module is inactive until you promote the managed device to be a Satellite with the Collection role or until the Collection role is added to an existing Satellite.
Content consists ofsystem updates (ZENworks Server and Adaptive Agent).
If you want to improve content access for a group of devices without creating another Primary Server, you can create the Content role on a device. For example, if you have devices that are accessing a Primary Server outside of their network segment, you can create the Content role on a device within the network segment to service those devices.
The Content role provides the same content delivery service as a Primary Server but requires only the Content role module that is installed with the ZENworks Adaptive Agent. The module is inactive until you enable it on the managed device.
When you enable the Content role on a device, you assign a Primary Server as its parent content server. The Content role Satellite downloads content only from its parent Primary Server. Therefore, any content you want hosted on a Content role Satellite must also be hosted on its parent Primary Server.
On the managed device, the Content module is inactive until you promote the managed device to be a Satellite with the Content role or until the Content role is added to an existing Satellite.