Intro Guide

Introduction to
Marimba Products
September 2004 (040916)
DOC
Marimba Product Line

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Contents
DOC
Overview
Marimba Solves Today’s IT Business Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
Introduction to Marimba’s Products and Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7
The Marimba Advantage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7
The Marimba Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10
Deploying and Using Marimba Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10
The End-User Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11
How to Read This Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12
Marimba’s Core Technology and Console
Architectural Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13
Marimba’s Core Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14
Core Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15
Marimba’s Agent: The Tuner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Marimba’s Distribution Servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Flow of Content and Information in a Marimba Infrastructure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17
Preparing the Marimba Infrastructure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Gathering Information from Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Distributing Content to Endpoints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
The Marimba Console . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21
Marimba Console Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22
Discovering Configurations
How It Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26
Integration with Other Marimba Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27
Scenario: Upcoming Software Audit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28
Introduction to Marimba Products 3

Managing Applications
How It Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Integration with Other Marimba Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Scenario: Business-Critical Applications Need to Be Deployed and Kept Up-to-Date . . 34
Distributing Content
How It Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Scenario: Website Content Needs to Be Delivered to 100 Remote Servers . . . . . . . . . . 40
Managing Patches
How It Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Scenario: Managing Patches for Various Operating Systems and Applications . . . . . . . 47
Migrating Operating Systems
How It Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Scenario: Manual OS Migration Effort Overburdens IT Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
What’s Next?
Professional Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Education Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Road Map to Marimba Documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Available Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Finding the Resources Suited for You . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Customer Care and Web Support Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Index
4 Introduction to Marimba Products

Overview
DOC
This guide introduces you to Marimba’s products and solutions, and defines
basic concepts about Marimba’s core technology. This guide also lists resources
that you can use once you are ready to implement Marimba’s solutions in your
environment. The audience for this guide is broad—ranging from system
administrators who want an overview of Marimba’s technology, to enterprise
executives who want to evaluate Marimba’s solutions.
Marimba Solves Today’s IT Business Problems

Marimba meets the needs of rapidly changing, complex IT environments by
automating change and configuration management across all devices and
platforms in your enterprise. Marimba products help enterprises address the
following types of problems:
Tracking and managing diverse assets. Today’s enterprise networks comprise a
diverse mix of hardware and software elements, including servers, desktops,
laptops, and mobile devices running on various platforms. The assets you need
to track might include machines belonging to employees inside the firewall as
well as those working outside the firewall (for example, those working from a
remote location). Often, you are required to use numerous solutions to track
and apply updates across such a variety of IT assets, which can be costly and
time consuming.
Compliance automation. There are numerous compliance initiatives that
enterprises need to be aware of and abide by, such as license compliance. The
number of software audits to ensure license compliance is on the rise. Non-
Overview 5
Marimba Solves Today’s IT Business Problems
compliance with software usage rights can be extremely costly (with penalties
exceeding $100,000 in some cases) and can also result in negative publicity for
enterprises.
In a changing economy, a company goes through many changes such as
acquisitions and mergers. This fluctuating environment makes it hard to keep
track of the company’s licenses and meet compliance requirements. In order to
meet compliance, companies needs an automated and efficient way to gather
inventory data about their assets.
Software management. Applications are essential to every aspect of business. IT
organizations are coming under increasing pressure to ensure that business-
critical applications are up-to-date and available. This is no small undertaking
considering the increased mobility of today's workforce and the continuing
need for application upgrades and new application deployments. Desktops
and laptops vary with regard to bandwidth and network connectivity—from
fast direct connections to the company network to intermittent dial-up
connections from outside the company. Enterprises need a solution that
addresses these issues by automating application management across the
enterprise, improving service levels, and reducing business risks through
reliable application delivery.
Security threats. The rise of malicious virus attacks and security breaches place
organizations at risk of potentially devastating business losses, reduced
employee productivity, and network downtime. These risks make it critical for
enterprises to rapidly detect vulnerabilities and deploy the updates necessary
to protect their systems. As attention to these security risks has increased,
software vendors have increased the number of patches they issue to address
security vulnerabilities and the frequency with which they issue them.
Manually applying these patches and fixes is time consuming, costly, and
inefficient. Enterprises need a solution that will allow them to quickly identify
missing patches and automatically deliver critical patches and fixes to
thousands of endpoints.
OS migration. Migrating machines to Windows 2000 and XP are at the top of
many CIO project lists and are destined to stay near the top given that
Microsoft has modified its licensing and support programs for Windows. The
requirement to keep the Windows operating system (OS) up-to-date has
resulted in migrations becoming an ongoing management process rather than a
one-time project. In addition, most organizations are required to support their
existing infrastructure during the migration, making OS migration a major
undertaking that requires detailed planning as well as significant time and
resources.

Introduction to Marimba’s Products and Solutions
Introduction to Marimba’s Products and Solutions

Marimba provides enterprises a complete solution for change and
configuration management—including planning, deploying, maintaining, and
auditing the content on desktops, servers, laptops, and mobile devices across
your enterprise.
Inventory Management. Marimba’s Inventory Management solution enables you
to collect accurate hardware, software, system, and logging information about
machines in your enterprise. Data about these devices is gathered and stored in
a central database even if the servers, laptops, desktops, or mobile devices are
offline or are only connected intermittently to your corporate network.
Inventory Management’s extensive reporting capabilities let administrators see
the information needed to plan OS migrations, application deployments, and
new IT purchases, as well as measure software usage and ensure license
compliance.
Application Management. Marimba’s Application Management solution gives
you the ability to perform policy-based distribution, update, repair, and
removal of applications on machines across your enterprise.
Content Distribution. Marimba’s Content Distribution solution helps you
manage the distribution, installation, and configuration requirements needed
for large amounts of rapidly changing data.
Patch Management. Marimba’s Patch Management solution empowers you to
manage the distribution of patches for operating systems and applications to
help you maintain a high level of security across your enterprise.
OS Management. Marimba’s OS Management solution automates and
accelerates operating system migrations across your enterprise.
The Marimba Advantage

This section discusses the advantages of Marimba’s technology and solutions.
The following figure shows a high-level view of a Marimba infrastructure. It
shows Marimba’s core components—its distribution servers, agent, and
console server. It also illustrates key features such as remote, centralized
administration, load balancing functionality, the ability for data to securely
traverse the corporate firewall, and Marimba’s ability to leverage existing
third-party repositories in your corporate environment. These features and
other advantages of Marimba’s solutions are discussed below.
Overview 7
Data securely
traverses corporate
firewall
Distribution servers are

used for load balancing
purposes
Master Distribution Server

Data is stored in
a third-party
database
Marimba console offers

remote, browser-based
administration of distribution
servers and endpoints
Directory Service Database
Console Server
Centralized, remote deployment. Deploying technologies across a wide array of

platforms can be time consuming and expensive. It can require separate
installations and different technical experts to learn and run the installation
process on each platform. Marimba solves this problem by offering a single
interface and process to install Marimba’s components (distribution servers
and agents) on all platforms. The remote deployment of Marimba components
is triggered from a central location, eliminating the need for administrators to
visit each individual machine.
Adaptable and integrates with existing standards-based technology. Unlike other
vendors who are tied to legacy systems, Marimba’s products use Internet
standards-based technology such as HTTP, XML, Java, SOAP, and SSL.
Marimba’s solutions adapt to a wide variety of bandwidth configurations
(ranging from dial-up to high-speed connections) and heterogeneous
platforms, integrate with existing third-party repositories, and provide
controlled access through existing corporate firewalls.

Marimba’s standards-based technology enables IT departments to use their

existing environment, providing a faster return-on-investment. For example,
Marimba’s core technology uses standard Oracle and Microsoft database
technologies for storing data. Marimba’s solutions can leverage an enterprise’s
existing corporate directory—including Microsoft Active Directory, Active
Directory Application Mode (ADAM), Sun ONE Directory, and NT domains.
Easy to maintain. The Marimba console allows administrators to manage and
monitor their entire infrastructure (including deploying content and
applications to their endpoints) from a central location. You add Marimba’s
solutions to the Marimba console as needed. Marimba’s solutions are built on
the same core technology and interact seamlessly with each other—resulting in
a more powerful and complete system for your enterprise. For example, from
the Marimba console, you can use Marimba’s Inventory Management solution
to identify applications that are under-utilized or are not being used, and then
use Marimba’s Application Management solution to automatically remove or
re-assign these applications based on corporate policies or directives.
Scalable. Marimba manages distributed, heterogeneous computing
environments that can include up to millions of endpoints (including desktops,
servers, laptops, mobile devices). To ensure that data is distributed to all
endpoints efficiently and reliably, Marimba offers a variety of distribution
servers (including mirror transmitters, repeater transmitters, and proxies) for
load balancing and fault-tolerance purposes.
Secure and firewall-friendly. Data in a Marimba environment can safely traverse
corporate firewalls, and data transfer can be protected using digital certificates,
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption, and user authentication.
Marimba’s solutions enable you to manage machines that are located both
inside and outside the firewall. For example, you might need to manage
machines belonging to employees inside the firewall, employees outside the
firewall (for example, those working from a remote location), and machines
located at customer or partner sites outside the firewall.
Efficient data-transfer. Marimba’s technology facilitates efficient updates of
software and data in your environment. Marimba’s technology has minimal
impact on network resources and performance by using features such as file
compression, checkpoint restart, byte-level and file-level differencing, and
bandwidth throttling, some of which are explained below:
• Checkpoint restart. Anyone who has had to restart a file download
because a connection failed when the download was 90% complete knows
the value of checkpoint restart. If a connection is lost during a download,
Marimba continues from the last downloaded part of the file, rather than
downloading the entire file again.
Overview 9
The Marimba Experience
• Byte-level and file-level differencing. Marimba optimizes bandwidth usage

by reducing the amount of data that is transmitted across the network.
When updated content is available, the Marimba agent downloads only
the bytes and files that are different from the content it has, rather than
downloading the entire content.
• Bandwidth throttling. You can configure the amount of bandwidth that
Marimba uses in communication sessions. For example, if the Marimba
agent is configured to use only 10% of a given connection for
downloading an application or update, the remaining 90% is available for
performing user tasks.

This section describes the experience of using Marimba products—including
the experience of the architect, developer, packager, administrator, and end
user.
Deploying and Using Marimba Products

During the planning phase, an architect might work with Marimba consultants
to plan the deployment of Marimba’s core components in your environment.
This includes setting up the Marimba console (from which you will manage all
distribution and administration activities), setting up your distribution servers,
and deploying Marimba’s agent (the tuner) to each machine that you want to
control using Marimba. The entire deployment can be planned and executed
across heterogeneous platforms from a central location.
After the infrastructure is set up, different personnel (such as administrators,
help desk personnel, or executives) can use the Marimba console in various
ways. The Marimba console provides access control to limit distribution,
administration, and reporting access to authorized personnel. The following
are a few of the activities that can be performed using the Marimba console:
Distribute content to endpoints. Administrators can use Application
Management or Content Distribution to deploy content to endpoints.
Administrators would assess which endpoints need content by using Inventory
Management to gather information such as hardware, software, and patch
levels about the endpoints.
Packagers would have prepared the content for distribution using Application
Management or Content Distribution. These can be off-the-shelf,
shrinkwrapped applications such as Microsoft Office, or custom content (web
pages, applications) that developers at your company have produced.

Marimba’s solutions offer enterprises different ways to distribute content in

their environment:
• Continuous, policy-based management—where the administrator defines
policies that determine the content that the endpoints should subscribe to
and update on an ongoing, scheduled basis.
• Deployment orchestration—where the administrator pushes out content to
endpoints immediately or schedules the content to be pushed out at a
later time.
• User-initiated management—where users subscribe to or update the
content that they need.
Generate reports and graphs to assess corporate needs. Managers and
executives can use Inventory Management to view demographics about the
machines in their enterprise, or to assess license compliance.
Address help desk tickets. Help desk personnel can use Inventory Management
to troubleshoot help desk tickets that have been filed. Help desk personnel can,
for example, view the hardware, software, and system information for a
particular endpoint, and take remote action to troubleshoot any issues with the
endpoint.
The End-User Experience

The Marimba system administrator can choose the level of interaction that end
users will have with Marimba technology.
Centralized control. Administrators can choose to have Marimba technology
and components be completely or mostly invisible to end users. End users on
endpoints (desktops, laptops, mobile devices, servers) would not need to know
how to use Marimba products. Administrators would distribute content to end
users using policy-based management or deployment orchestration. End users
would simply receive updates to their applications, patches, and settings
automatically.
In the case where Marimba technology and components are completely
invisible to end users, no dialog boxes appear on the end-user machine during
the deployment of Marimba’s core components and during updates to content
and applications on endpoints. Alternatively, if the administrator wants the
end user to supply certain settings (such as the installation location), the
administrator can configure Marimba’s core components to require interaction
from the end user during the deployment and update process.
Overview 11
How to Read This Guide
Giving end users control. You might have an environment where you want end
users to resolve their own technical support issues (user-initiated
management). Marimba enables end users to install, update, repair, rollback,
and remove content and applications on their endpoint (desktop, laptop,
server, mobile device) as needed.
How to Read This Guide

Each chapter in the remainder of this guide describes a Marimba solution. The
table in the beginning of each chapter helps you quickly identify the benefits of
the solution. The following chapters are dedicated to describing Marimba’s
solutions and technology:
• Marimba’s Core Technology and Console on page 13
• Discovering Configurations on page 25
• Managing Applications on page 31
• Distributing Content on page 37
• Managing Patches on page 43
• Migrating Operating Systems on page 51
The last chapter, What’s Next? on page 57, lists resources that you can use once
you are ready to implement Marimba’s solutions in your environment.

Marimba’s Core
Technology and
Console
DOC
This chapter introduces Marimba’s core technology and the Marimba console.
Core Technology and Console

Core Technology Marimba solutions use Marimba’s core technology and components to
enable the secure, reliable, and efficient distribution of content
throughout your enterprise.
Marimba Console Administrators use the Marimba console as the browser-based

interface for centralized management of the servers, desktops, and
other components throughout your enterprise.
Related Planning Guide

Documentation Deployment Guide
Infrastructure Administrator’s Guide
Infrastructure & Console Release Notes
Architectural Overview
The following figure shows a high-level view of a Marimba infrastructure. It
shows Marimba’s distribution servers, agent, and console server. It also
illustrates features such as remote, centralized administration, load balancing
Marimba’s Core Technology and Console 13

Marimba’s Core Technology
functionality, the ability for data to securely traverse the corporate firewall, and
Marimba’s ability to leverage existing third-party repositories in your
corporate environment.
Data securely
traverses corporate
firewall
Distribution servers are

used for load balancing
purposes
Master Distribution Server

Data is stored in
a third-party
database
Marimba console offers

remote, browser-based
administration of distribution
servers and endpoints
Console Server
Figure 1. Architectural Overview of Marimba’s Core Components
The following sections describe Marimba’s core technology—including how to

deploy, maintain, and administer it using the Marimba solutions running on
the console server:
• Marimba’s Core Technology on page 14
• The Marimba Console on page 21

This section introduces you to Marimba’s core technology, and explains how
information flows through a Marimba infrastructure.

Core Technology
Marimba’s core technology includes all the features and functionality that
enable the secure, reliable, and efficient distribution of content throughout
your enterprise. Marimba’s core technology includes Marimba’s distribution
server, agent, and channels.
Marimba’s Agent: The Tuner

The Marimba agent (tuner) has the following main features and
functions:
• It acts as the base for all Marimba technology, including Marimba’s
distribution servers. A tuner resides on the endpoints and the servers to
enable secure and efficient communication between these components.
• Because the tuner resides on endpoints, it has the functionality to issue
requests to Marimba’s distribution server—to download content from or
upload (publish) content to the server.
Note: In most cases, the fact that a tuner resides on all components (including
the distribution server) is hidden—as it is in the architectural diagram above.
The tuner is usually associated with and referred to as the client component
in a Marimba infrastructure, residing on the endpoints (desktops, laptops,
servers, and mobile devices). Endpoint tuner or managed node are common
terms used for referring to the client component in a Marimba infrastructure.
Marimba’s Distribution Servers

Marimba’s distribution servers deliver content to Marimba’s agents (tuners). In
order to enable load balancing and fault-tolerance in your environment,
Marimba offers the following types of distribution servers:
Master transmitter. The master transmitter serves as the primary source
of content in your environment. It hosts the content that is distributed to
all other components in your environment. Typically, you configure only
one master transmitter in your environment.
Mirror transmitter. You can use one or more mirror transmitters to
regularly replicate (copy) all the content of the master transmitter, and
serve as a pseudo-master transmitter by distributing content to clients.
A mirror alleviates load on the master transmitter and often serves as a
backup, redundancy mechanism for the master transmitter.

Repeater transmitter. You can use one or more repeater transmitters to

regularly replicate all or part of the content of one or more transmitters
(mirrors or the master). Repeaters are usually distributed across a WAN,
and are geographically closer to clients, enabling faster downloads and
providing clients the ability to download data without leaving the LAN.
Proxy. The Marimba proxy is an HTTP-based proxy that caches
Marimba content and enables components to traverse corporate
firewalls. Proxies act as intermediaries between transmitters and their
clients, brokering requests from clients and sending files back to them on
behalf of the transmitter. Because Marimba proxies cache Marimba data, they
are a good choice in remote locations where clients and the transmitter are
separated by a slow connection.
The Planning Guide, available on Marimba’s Documentation page
(www.marimba.com/doc/), helps you decide when to use the different types of
distribution servers in your environment.
Channels
Marimba products operate in a client-server architecture, where servers
distribute content to clients. Content is delivered in the form of channels. A
channel is simply content (such as applications, files, registry key settings, and
so on) in a format that is compatible with Marimba’s technology. Marimba
components distribute, download, and manage content in the form of channels.
Channels are hosted by Marimba’s distribution servers (transmitters and
proxies) and are downloaded by and run on Marimba’s agent (tuners). The
channel format enables updates to be performed easily, efficiently, and even
automatically. Channels also optimize bandwidth utilization by enabling delta-
only transfers and checkpoint restart. These concepts, as well as other benefits
of Marimba’s technology, are described in the section The Marimba Advantage on
page 7.
Marimba’s own products use the channel format as well. All Marimba
products are channels; the only exception is the agent (the tuner). Thus, the
transmitter, proxy, Marimba console, and components of all Marimba solutions
are delivered and downloaded onto machines in the form of channels. The
Marimba tuner is simply a base, and you add functionality to it by installing
and running channels (Marimba’s products or your own applications and data)
on it as needed.

Flow of Content and Information in a Marimba Infrastructure

Marimba manages machines remotely by distributing data and applications,
and applying configuration settings to them. In order to do this accurately,
Marimba technology enables you to gather information about the machines so
that you can gain a clear picture about which machines you need to target.
Enabling the flow of content and information in a Marimba infrastructure
involves the following steps:
1 Preparing the Marimba Infrastructure on page 17
2 Gathering Information from Machines on page 19
3 Distributing Content to Endpoints on page 19
Preparing the Marimba Infrastructure

Before you can manage the machines in your environment using Marimba’s
solutions, you need to deploy Marimba’s core components on these machines.
This includes setting up the Marimba console (from which you will manage all
distribution and administration activities), setting up your distribution servers,
and deploying Marimba’s agent (the tuner) to each machine that you want to
control using Marimba. The entire deployment can be planned and executed
across heterogeneous platforms from a central location. The deployment
process is discussed in more detail in the section Marimba Console Components on
page 22.
You also need to set up any database servers or directory services that you will
be using to manage information about your machines. You can use database
servers or directory services that already exist in your corporate environment.
After you have set up your infrastructure, you can then add and use
Marimba’s solutions to manage your machines.
The following figure shows a typical Marimba deployment. The Marimba
deployment in your company might differ depending on your company’s
environment and needs. The Planning Guide, available on Marimba’s
Documentation page (www.marimba.com/doc/), discusses the architecture of a
Marimba deployment in more detail.

Marimba Tuner on Endpoints
Repeater Repeater
Transmitter Transmitter
Third-Party Load Balancer
Mirror Mirror
Master
Transmitter

Console Server
Figure 2. Sample Marimba Deployment
You need to manage and maintain the Marimba core components on an

ongoing, as-needed basis—upgrading or troubleshooting any issues that arise
with the Marimba tuner or transmitters. You will use the Marimba console to
perform these administration activities, as described in the section The Marimba
Console on page 21.

Gathering Information from Machines

In order to deploy applications, data, and configure settings on endpoints
accurately, you first need to gather accurate information from your endpoints
so that you can get a clear picture of which machines you need to target.
Marimba enables you to gather information, such as hardware, software,
system settings, patch levels, and so on.
When you deploy the tuner on endpoints, you also usually deploy service
channels onto these machines. Service channels start automatically according to
a schedule on endpoints, sending and receiving information in the background.
Service channels are used to gather information from machines and to execute
commands on machines. Service channels communicate with (send data to or
receive commands from) a component residing on the transmitter. For
example, the Scanner Service runs on each endpoint and collects hardware,
software, and system settings information at scheduled intervals. It sends this
data to the Inventory plug-in, which resides on the transmitter.
A plug-in is the server-side component that a service channel communicates
with. In this case, the Inventory plug-in serves as the server-side component
that the Scanner Service channel communicates with. Plug-ins reside on a
transmitter and extend the transmitter’s functionality in some way. A plug-in
receives data from the service channels on endpoints, and can process this data
in a variety of ways. For example, the Inventory plug-in collects inventory data
from endpoints and transfers that data to the central database. Administrators
access this information (using Marimba products, such as Report Center)
during the planning of application deployments, patch deployments, OS
migrations, and so on.
(Service channels that execute commands received from a server-side
component are described later in this guide. These include the Policy Service
and Deployment Service.)
Distributing Content to Endpoints

This section describes how content is generally distributed in a Marimba
infrastructure.

1 Publish. You first package the content into a channel (a format that is
compatible with Marimba’s technology), and then publish (upload) the
content onto a distribution server (master transmitter). After content is
uploaded to a distribution server, it is ready for distribution to your
enterprise.
2 Replicate. Content is replicated by other distribution servers (repeaters or
mirrors), enabling load to be balanced among the servers in your
environment and resulting in more efficient downloads. If you are using
proxies, content is cached by the proxies.
3 Subscribe. Endpoints (desktops, laptops, servers, mobile devices) obtain
content from a distribution server. Marimba’s solutions offer enterprises
different ways to distribute content to endpoints:
• Continuous, policy-based management—where the administrator
defines policies that determine the content that the endpoints should
subscribe to and update on an ongoing, scheduled basis.
• Deployment orchestration—where the administrator pushes out
content to endpoints immediately or schedules the content to be
pushed out at a later time.
• User-initiated management—where users subscribe to or update the
content that they need.
Service channels on endpoints execute commands for downloading and
installing content and applications on endpoints. As mentioned in
Gathering Information from Machines on page 19, service channels are
responsible for executing the commands for downloading and installing
content and applications on endpoints.
The following figure shows the general flow of information in a Marimba
infrastructure, from the start (publishing content to the distribution server) to
the final destination (downloading content on the endpoints). The flow could
differ slightly depending on your infrastructure. Typical Marimba
infrastructures are discussed in detail in the Planning Guide, available on
Marimba’s Documentation page (www.marimba.com/doc/).

The Marimba Console
Publish
Master
Transmitter
Mirror Mirror
Replicate
Third-Party
Load Balancer
Repeater Repeater
Subscribe
Figure 3. General Flow of Content in a Marimba Infrastructure
The Marimba Console

This section introduces you to the Marimba console and shows the typical
interaction between the console and other Marimba components. The Marimba
console provides a browser-based console for Marimba’s solutions. When you
install one or more of Marimba’s solutions on the console server, the
component for managing that solution appears in the Marimba console.
Marimba’s solutions provide a modular and scalable system that can be
modified to accommodate an enterprise’s business requirements. Because
Marimba’s solutions share a common core technology, they can interact with
each other, and offer a complete and extensive solution for your enterprise. For

The Marimba Console
example, you can use Marimba’s Inventory Management solution to identify

applications that are under-utilized or are not being used, and then use
Marimba’s Application Management solution to automatically remove or re-
assign these applications based on corporate policies or directives.
Figure 4. Applications Available from the Marimba Console
The Marimba console also provides the interface for the console’s system
settings. System settings allow you to provide information and set
configurations that apply to all the Marimba applications. These include
settings for determining how users are authenticated when they log in to use
the Marimba applications and for specifying the directory service and database
sources where the Marimba applications get and store data.
Marimba Console Components

The components that make up the Marimba console allow you to administer
the different Marimba solutions that you use to manage your endpoints.
Common Management Services (CMS) provides a foundation on which the
other components of the Marimba console, such as Report Center, run. CMS
also allows you to configure system settings, which apply to all the
applications. As shown in Figure 5 on page 23, the other Marimba console
components run on top of CMS.

The Marimba Console
Migration Module Patch Manager
Report Center Policy Manager Deployment Manager
Setup & Infrastructure

Deployment Administration
Tools
CMS
Marimba Console
Figure 5. The Components of the Marimba Console
In addition to CMS, the Marimba console consists of the following

components:
• Setup & Deployment. This component allows you to deploy, install, and
update Marimba’s core infrastructure components. As part of your
deployment process, you create profiles for each of the machines in your
environment. Profiles provide a central location for defining, storing, and
updating the configuration settings that you are applying to a set of
machines.
You assign profiles to machines in your environment as part of the
deployment process, and can edit these profiles in an ongoing basis.
Profiles enable you to apply the same configuration settings to multiple
machines. Marimba offers you a predefined set of profiles for the different
infrastructure components, for example managed nodes (that is,
endpoints), master transmitter, mirrors, and repeaters. You edit these
profiles as needed to suit the requirements in your environment. For more
information, see Preparing the Marimba Infrastructure on page 17.
• Infrastructure administration tools. The term infrastructure administration
tools refers collectively to the Tuner Administrator, Transmitter
Administrator, and Proxy Administrator browser-based applications.
These tools allow you to administer and perform actions on one or more
core infrastructure components, such as tuners, transmitters, and proxies.
For example, if you want to gather information from a group of machines,
you can use Tuner Administrator to connect to the tuners on those

The Marimba Console
machines and start scanning for information. These tools are also useful
when you want to override profile settings for specific tuners,
transmitters, and proxies.
• Report Center. This Marimba application provides central management for
the inventory and logging information collected from endpoints. It
translates inventory data deposited in the database into strategic
information. Report Center includes support for graphing, e-mail
schedules, query building tools, and hundreds of built-in reports. For
more information about Report Center and Marimba’s Inventory
Management solution, see Discovering Configurations on page 25.
• Policy Manager. This Marimba application provides central management
of the policies that you assign to target endpoints. Policy Manager allows
you to browse and select endpoints from a directory service. The
endpoints might be users, user groups, machines, machine groups,
domains, containers, and collections. You can then assign packages and
other associated information to these endpoints. For each package, you
can specify a variety of schedules (for installing, updating, and repairing
applications), as well as properties that apply to a specific application.
• Deployment Manager. This Marimba application provides centralized
administration and near real-time monitoring when performing tasks on
multiple endpoints all at the same time. It was originally designed for
managing servers, but it can also be used for desktop endpoints.
Deployment Manager allows you to perform jobs (such as distributing
content, distributing applications, and performing remote system
commands) at exactly the same time on all the machines in the group, so
that all the machines can be kept in the same exact state.
You can also configure Deployment Manager to automatically retry jobs
however many times you specify. You can perform remote system
commands by typing in a command as if you were using a UNIX shell
window or DOS prompt. You can use Deployment Manager’s SOAP
interface to incorporate its functionality into your own application’s
interface.
• Solution-specific console components. When you purchase and install
more Marimba solutions, additional components become available in the
console. For example, if you install the Patch Management solution, Patch
Manager becomes available in the console, and if you install the OS
Management solution, the Migration Module becomes available in the
console.

Discovering
Configurations
DOC
This chapter describes Marimba’s Inventory Management solution and

highlights how this solution facilitates planning, budgeting, and compliance
initiatives.
Inventory Management
Description Enables enterprises to collect accurate hardware, software, system,
and logging information about their IT assets, including servers,
desktops, laptops, and mobile devices across major platforms.
Benefits • Asset tracking, software usage, and license

compliance. Enables enterprises to quickly verify and gather
information about their IT assets. This data helps IT administrators
measure software usage, and take appropriate actions to lower
software licensing costs and meet license compliance
requirements.
• Planning capabilities. Extensive reporting capabilities provide
administrators the information needed to plan OS migrations,
application deployments, and new IT purchases.
• Remote troubleshooting. Provides help desk personnel with
details needed to troubleshoot problems remotely. Also, this
solution integrates with other Marimba solutions, enabling you to
perform actions such as installing, uninstalling, or repairing an
application.
Related Report Center Administrator’s Guide

Documentation Report Center/Inventory Release Notes
Discovering Configurations 25
How It Works
How It Works
This section describes how Marimba’s Inventory Management solution works
to collect inventory data from IT assets throughout your enterprise and then
translate this data into meaningful graphs and reports.
Data is gathered
1 from endpoints
MIrrors, Repeaters, Proxies
2 Master Transmitter
Data is stored in
a third-party
database
Report Center
browser-based
application
Console Server
Figure 6. Inventory Data Is Collected from Endpoints and Is Queried Using Report Center
The following steps show how Marimba’s Inventory Management solution

discovers the configuration of IT assets:
1 Collect information about IT assets, and send it to the database. Marimba’s
Scanner Service resides on each machine. It collects information from
these machines at scheduled intervals, with minimal impact on end users.
You can specify the type of information that you want Scanner Service to

Integration with Other Marimba Solutions
collect from endpoints, such as hardware, network, operating system, and

so on. Data is gathered accurately even if machines are only intermittently
or infrequently connected to the network.
Scanner Service sends information that it has collected from endpoints
back to the Inventory plug-in on the transmitter. The Inventory plug-in on
the transmitter then transfers the data to a third-party, centralized,
relational database. (For more information about service channels and
plug-ins, see Gathering Information from Machines on page 19.)
2 Query database for machine information. Marimba’s Report Center—a
browser-based application that runs on the Marimba console—queries the
database and translates inventory data deposited in the database into
strategic information, including reports and graphs.
Report Center reports and graphs help you track the assets in your
environment and monitor software usage. Report Center also enables you
to take action based on the reports and query results, for example, by
launching Marimba’s Transmitter Administrator, Tuner Administrator, or
Timbuktu Pro to manage remote machines.

Marimba’s Inventory Management is built on top of the same core technology
as other Marimba solutions, resulting in an inventory solution that is more
scalable and efficient than other inventory solutions. Marimba’s Inventory
Management integrates with other Marimba solutions in the following ways:
Gathering patch information. Using Inventory Management, administrators can
scan for known virus risks and determine patch levels, and then use Marimba’s
Patch Management solution to target devices for patch deployment.
Gathering software usage information. Once IT administrators identify in
Report Center the applications that are not being used or are under-utilized,
they can use Marimba’s Application Management to define a policy to
automatically remove or re-assign these applications on machines. They can
then use Report Center to monitor policy compliance.
Identifying the content on servers. You can create a Report Center query to
identify the servers that need a particular application or content, and then
target these servers using Marimba’s Content Distribution solution.
Identifying machines for OS migration. Report Center query results can be
imported into Marimba Migration Module to help you construct a group of the
machines that you want to migrate.
Scenario: Upcoming Software Audit
Launching remote administration tools. Administrators can launch management

tools (Tuner Administrator and Transmitter Administrator) from Report Center
to connect directly to the machine and address the issue immediately.
Identifying machines for remote administration. You can also use Report Center
query results in Tuner Administrator, Transmitter Administrator, and Proxy
Administrator to identify and administer the infrastructure components that
meet certain criteria.

Business need. Acme, Inc. is facing a software audit. A single audit can cause
significant disruption to business and generate substantial penalties in order to
achieve license compliance. In order to avoid incurring penalties during the
software audit, Sally, a senior-level IT administrator at Acme, Inc. wants to
implement a software management solution to track and control their IT assets,
and measure software usage. Currently, the IT department is experiencing
difficulty with manually keeping an accurate record of software that has been
installed on endpoints. The IT department is not able to monitor unauthorized
software that employees might be installing on their machines. To add to the
problem, desktops and laptops are being moved around or taken out of
production without proper record keeping.
How Marimba addresses this need. Marimba’s Inventory Management solution
helps this IT department avoid penalties during the software audit by
providing them a clear picture of the software that is installed and being used
on endpoints, and by providing them with a way to quickly remove or re-
assign software on machines.
The first step is to gather information (including software usage statistics) from
endpoints at Acme, Inc. Sally, the IT administrator, decides that the inventory
collection process should be completely invisible to end users. She achieves
this by configuring the Scanner Service to run on endpoints without requiring
feedback from the end user. Thus, the end user is not asked for permission
before the scanning begins, a progress bar is not displayed during the scan,
and the end user is not allowed to cancel the scan.
Information about endpoints is collected on a regular basis by Scanner Service,
ensuring that this data is accurate and up-to-date. In addition, data is gathered
accurately even if machines are only intermittently or infrequently connected
to the network. Scanner Service simply uploads the results of any performed
scans the next time the machine connects to the network.

Once data is collected from endpoints and is inserted into a standard,

centralized database, Sally uses the pre-defined software usage queries
included with Marimba’s Report Center to gather information such as:
• How frequently applications are being used.
• The number of users utilizing an application.
• A list of applications that have been used (and those that have not been
used) during a specified date range.
• A list of machines with applications that have never been used.
Sally also uses Report Center to generate graphs (such as the one shown
below) to analyze the software usage information and to present it to other
departments (such as the Finance department) at Acme, Inc.
Figure 7. Monitoring Software Usage Through Report Center’s Extensive Reports and Graphs
This information enables Sally, the IT department, and Finance department to:
• Identify applications that are installed but not being used, or applications
that are under-utilized. (Sally realizes that Acme, Inc. has overspent on
software license fees as they strived to stay within compliance. Acme, Inc.
has based software purchasing strategies around preventing software

license violations, resulting in them buying more licenses than they
actually use.)
• Determine whether or not her enterprise is under-licensed, and is in
violation of license compliance requirements. Sally realizes that endpoints
at Acme, Inc. do contain software that is not properly licensed, and that
needs to be removed or re-allocated.
However, for Sally and the IT department, knowing this information is only
half the battle. They also need to be able to act upon this information by
quickly and efficiently removing or reassigning the applications in their
environment before the software audit occurs. Marimba’s Inventory
Management solution integrates seamlessly with Marimba’s Application
Management solution, giving the IT department control of the entire license
compliance process. Long before the audit occurs, the IT department efficiently
removes or re-assigns applications using Marimba’s powerful policy-based
management and application management capabilities.
In addition, from now on, the Finance and Purchasing departments at Acme,
Inc. use Marimba’s Report Center to get a clear picture of which machines need
certain software, and to gain up-to-date status on current software deployment.
This information gives Acme, Inc. leverage in negotiating license agreements
with software vendors and prevents them from overspending on software
purchases (as they had done previously by buying more licenses than they
actually used).

Managing
Applications
DOC
This chapter describes Marimba’s Application Management

solution—especially highlighting how it facilitates packaging, distributing, and
updating applications.
Application Management
Description Provides the ability to package, test, and deploy applications—both
custom and off-the-shelf—across a number of different platforms.
Once applications are deployed, this solution enables you to ensure
that applications are up-to-date and valid by providing ongoing update
and verification.
Benefits • Allows administrators to convert applications (and subsequent
updates) into a format that can be efficiently distributed to
endpoints and managed using Marimba’s solutions.
• Packages a wide variety of applications, including custom, MSI,
.NET, UNIX, Java, PDA, shrink-wrapped or off-the-shelf
applications.
• Allows administrators to edit and customize packaged applications
for specific endpoints.
Related Application Packager Administrator’s Guide
Documentation Application Packager Release Notes
How It Works
The following diagram shows how Marimba’s Application Management
solution works to package applications into channels that can be easily and
efficiently deployed to the endpoints throughout your enterprise.
Managing Applications 31
How It Works
Packaging
Machine
Applications
Packaged Mirrors, Repeaters, Proxies

Applications,
or Channels
Master Transmitter
Policy Manager or
Deployment Manager
browser-based
application Directory Service Database
Console Server
Figure 8. Packaging and Distributing Applications Through Application Management
The following steps show how Marimba’s Application Management solution

facilitates the packaging and distribution of applications and updates:
1 Package the application. Using Marimba’s Application Packager, you
package an application (or subsequent updates) and customize it using
the Package Editor. Usually, Application Packager runs on a dedicated
packaging machine that closely matches the target endpoints. It converts
applications into a format that can be efficiently distributed to endpoints

and managed using Marimba’s solutions. Using Application Packager,

you can package a wide variety of applications, including custom, MSI,
.NET, UNIX, Java, PDA, shrink-wrapped, and off-the-shelf applications.
The result of packaging is a channel that contains all the information
necessary to install the application on target endpoints. For more
information about channels, see Channels on page 16.
2 Publish the channel to a distribution server. You publish the channel to a
distribution server, or transmitter, to make it available to the target
endpoints. For more information about transmitters, see Marimba’s
Distribution Servers on page 15.
3 Deploy the channel to the target endpoints. You use the Policy Manager or
Deployment Manager components of the Marimba console to deploy the
channel to target endpoints:
• You can use Policy Manager to define a policy for a target endpoint,
and, as part of the policy, you can include a list of the channels that
you want to install on that target endpoint. As part of creating the
policy, you can specify a schedule for downloading, installing, and
updating the channel on the target endpoints. The policies you create
are stored in the directory service.
When the Policy Service at the target endpoint updates the policy, it
downloads the applications that have been assigned to the endpoint
and performs the installation (or update, verification, and so on)
according to the schedule specified in the policy.
• You can use Deployment Manager to define and schedule a
deployment that includes a list of the channels that you want to install
on the target endpoint. Deployment Manager sends instructions to the
Deployment Service running on the endpoints, and these instructions
can include downloading, installing, updating, verifying the
application. Deployment Service sends status back to Deployment
Manager, so that you can monitor the progress and outcome of the
deployment.

Marimba’s Application Management is built on top of the same core
technology as other Marimba solutions, resulting in a solution that is more
scalable and efficient than other solutions in its class. Marimba’s Application
Scenario: Business-Critical Applications Need to Be Deployed and Kept Up-to-Date
Gather usage information for deployed applications. Once you have deployed
applications to target endpoints, you can use Marimba’s Inventory
Management solution to identify which applications are not being used or are
under-utilized. You can then decide to remove or re-assign these applications.
Enable policy-based application provisioning. After you have used Marimba’s
OS Management solution to migrate targeted machines to a new operating
system, you can use Application Management for further policy-based
application provisioning. This ability removes the requirement to bundle the
operating systems and applications into massive images.
Manage patches for applications. Once you have deployed applications to
target endpoints, you can use Marimba’s Patch Management solution to
distribute patches for these applications based on policies.
Scenario: Business-Critical Applications Need to Be Deployed

and Kept Up-to-Date
Business need. The IT group at Acme, Inc. is responsible for deploying a
standard set of applications to all the desktops and laptops in the company.
The standard set of applications include:
• Productivity software, such as word processors, spreadsheet, and
presentation applications.
• Business-critical applications that were created in-house especially for
Acme, Inc. employees.
• Anti-virus software and the accompanying data.
In addition to deploying these applications, the IT group is also responsible for
keeping them updated. The frequency for updating these applications varies.
For example, the anti-virus software can require instant updates on a day-to-
day basis, while the productivity software can exist for months or years
without requiring any updates. Making deployment and updates more
complicated is the fact that the desktops and laptops vary with regard to
bandwidth and network connectivity. Most desktops are connected by a T1 line
directly to the company’s network, while some laptops connect to the
company’s network only intermittently using a dial-up connection.
How Marimba addresses this need. Marimba’s Application Management
solution enables the IT group at Acme, Inc. to deploy and update a standard
set of applications to a variety of machines with varying degrees of bandwidth
and network connectivity.

The first step is to package the applications into a format that can be
distributed and managed efficiently using Marimba’s Application Packager.
Angela, the IT administrator responsible for distributing applications, decides
to divide the applications to be packaged among her team members:
• One team member packages productivity software, such as word
processors, spreadsheet, and presentation applications.
• Another team member packages business-critical applications and works
closely with the in-house developers who created the applications
especially for Acme, Inc. employees.
• Another team member packages anti-virus software and the
accompanying data.
After packaging the applications, Angela and her team use a component of
Application Packager called the Package Editor to customize the applications
before deploying them. For example, the team member responsible for
productivity software bundles a different set of document, spreadsheet, and
presentation templates for different employees in the company—all employees
get standard forms like timesheets, expense reports, and presentation
templates with the Acme, Inc. logo; managers get project planning and
resource allocation forms; members of the Finance team get a set of accounting
forms; and so on.
Figure 9. Customizing an Application Using the Package Editor
Next, Angela and her team publish the packaged applications to a transmitter
in their test environment. They deploy the packaged applications and make
sure they install properly on test endpoint machines. If any changes need to be
made to the packaged applications, they use the Package Editor to make them.
After completing their tests on the packaged applications, Angela and her team
publish them to transmitters in the production environment and then deploy
them to endpoint machines using the Policy Manager component of the
Marimba console. Using Policy Manager, Angela and her team create policies
that assign packaged applications to targets. Targets represent users, groups of
users, machines, groups of machines, containers or organizational units in the
directory server, domains, or even all the endpoints in the enterprise. When
Angela and her team create policies, they specify schedules for downloading,
installing, and updating the packaged applications.
Figure 10. Assigning Applications to Endpoints Using Policy Manager
When endpoint users require newer versions of the applications, Angela and
her team package and deploy the newer versions just as they did the original
applications. Because the packaged applications use Marimba’s channel
format, they take advantage of file compression, bandwidth throttling,
checkpoint restart, and byte-level and file-level differencing. For more
information about these features, see The Marimba Advantage on page 7. These
features make it more efficient to deploy updates to applications on endpoints
that have varying degrees of bandwidth and network connectivity, even for
laptops that connect to the company’s network only intermittently using a dial-
up connection. In addition, Angela and her team easily perform verifications
and repairs if any applications get corrupted.

Distributing Content
DOC
This chapter describes Marimba’s Content Distribution solution and how it

enables you to control the distribution of content. Whereas the Application
Management solution is meant to be used for applications, the Content
Distribution solution is designed for distributing large numbers of files and
directories, and also very large files. In addition, this solution enables you to
package content (for example, HTML files) on one platform and then distribute
them to various UNIX and Windows platforms.
Content Distribution
Description Automates the distribution, installation, and maintenance of large
amounts of code and content. This solution is optimized for handling
high volumes of code and content—in terms of both the number of
files and the size of files.
Benefits • Reduces administration costs and improves service levels by
efficiently and reliably delivering high volumes of rapidly changing
content files across machines, regardless of platform.
• Moves large amounts of dynamic content across multiple
distributed servers in a fast, efficient, and transparent manner
without affecting service levels (files up to 150 GB and directories
containing up to 2,000,000 individual files).
• Stages and synchronizes content prior to activation across test
and production systems.
• Maintains multiple versions of the content and moves content
seamlessly across operating systems.
• Integrates with existing code management systems.
Related Server Management Administrator’s Guide
Documentation Server Management Advanced Topics Guide
Server Management Guide to the Command-Line Interface
Server Management Release Notes
Distributing Content 37
How It Works
How It Works
This section describes how Marimba’s Content Distribution solution works to
control and monitor the distribution of content to various endpoints
throughout your enterprise.
Source
Machine
Content
Content
Replicator
Mirrors, Repeaters, Proxies

Channels
Master Transmitter
Deployment Manager
browser-based
application Directory Service Database
Console Server
Figure 11. Managing the Delivery of Content Through the Content Distribution Solution
The following steps show how Marimba’s Content Distribution solution

manages the distribution of content to endpoints:

1 Publish the content to a transmitter. Deployment Manager sends

instructions to Deployment Service and Content Replicator on the source
machine (the one that contains the content that you want to distribute) to
publish the content to the transmitter. For more information about
transmitters, see Marimba’s Distribution Servers on page 15.
On the source machine, Content Replicator converts the source content
into a format that can be efficiently distributed to endpoints and managed
using Marimba’s solutions. Then, it publishes the content to a transmitter
to make it available for distribution to the endpoints.
2 Install the content on endpoints. Next, at scheduled times, Deployment
Manager sends instructions to Deployment Service on the endpoints to get
the content. You specify groups of endpoints so that you can easily control
which sets of content get distributed to which groups of endpoints.
On the target endpoints, Deployment Service instructs Content Replicator
to carry out actions in a particular order. For example, one action might be
to download the content to endpoints but not actually install it, while the
next action would be to perform the installation. This mechanism enables
you, in this case, to distribute the content to all the endpoints without
disturbing existing content. Then, you can activate the new content across
multiple endpoints in unison.
3 Monitor the progress and outcome of the content deployment. The target
machines send status back to Deployment Manager, and Deployment
Manager uses this information to give you an overall summary of how the
deployment is progressing (how many machines have installed content or
had errors).
You can also drill down to each individual machine and see more detail
about how the deployment is progressing on that machine. You can easily
view any log entries produced during installation.

Marimba’s Content Distribution solution is built on top of the same core
scalable and efficient than other solutions in its class. Marimba’s Content
Distribution integrates with other Marimba solutions in the following ways:
Identify the endpoints that require content. You can use Marimba’s Inventory
Management solution to create a Report Center query to identify the endpoints
that need particular content, and then target these endpoints using Marimba’s
Content Distribution solution.
Scenario: Website Content Needs to Be Delivered to 100 Remote Servers
Distribute patches to content and data. If you have high volumes of content and
data that you have distributed to endpoints using the Content Distribution
solution, you can use Marimba’s Patch Management solution to distribute
patches to that content and data. For example, you already have a large data
channel (created and distributed with the Content Distribution solution) that
contains all of the files for a particular website, and you want to distribute a
patch consisting of a couple of files that must be periodically updated. In this
situation, you can create a Content Replicator patch that contains only those
two files. After the information in the files is updated, you can roll out that
patch.
Scenario: Website Content Needs to Be Delivered to 100

Remote Servers
Business need. The IT group at Acme, Inc. is responsible for distributing the
contents of a website to 100 remote servers that serve customers inside and
outside the company. The website content includes:
• HTML files
• Graphics and multimedia files
• Code
The servers are located in 100 different sites in North America and Europe.
Also, the IT group must control the deployment of the website content from
the development environment to the test environment, and finally, to the
production environment.
How Marimba addresses this need. Marimba’s Content Distribution solution
enables the IT group at Acme, Inc. to centrally and efficiently deploy and
update content to servers located in 100 different sites.
The first step is to publish the content—consisting of HTML files, graphics
files, multimedia files, and code—from the source directories in the
development environment to a distribution server (transmitter). Bruce, the IT
administrator responsible for deploying the website content, works with the
content developers to make sure all the website content is ready. Then, he uses
Deployment Manager and Content Replicator to publish the different types of
files to the transmitter.
After he publishes the content, Bruce wants to deliver the same website content
on several Web servers and activate that content at the same moment. If one of
the servers fails to receive the content for some reason, he wants all the servers

to revert back to the previous version of the directory so that the content is
kept in sync on all the servers. To achieve this goal, he uses Deployment
Manager to create three related tasks:
• A task named Stage, which would download but not activate the content.
• A task named Install, which would activate the content only if the Stage
task was successfully completed on all the target servers.
• A task named Rollback, which he would use in the event that the Install
task failed to complete successfully on one or more of the targets.
These related tasks are part of one task group, which he names Web Content.
He also creates server groups based on location. For example, one group
includes all the servers located on the West Coast, while another includes all
the servers located on the East Coast. Then, he adds the task group and server
groups to a deployment. When he adds the task group called Web Content to
the deployment, the following deployment jobs are automatically created:
Stage, Install, and Rollback. In other words, a job is automatically created for
each task in the task group.
Figure 12. Deploying Content to Servers Using Deployment Manager and Content Replicator
Next, Bruce uses Deployment Manager to install the content from the
transmitter to the servers in the test environment. He tests the website content
and makes sure the content is installed properly on servers of various
platforms in the test environment.
During testing, Bruce discovers that some of the new website content requires
the successful deployment of a new web server application. Knowing this, he
configures Deployment Manager so that, if the web server application isn’t
installed successfully, the website content won’t be installed. If the web server
application is installed successfully on some servers but not others, the
successful installations can be rolled back if necessary, to keep all servers
synchronized.
Then, Bruce deploys the website content from the transmitter to the servers in
the production environment. He does this by running the deployment jobs he
created in Deployment Manager. From Deployment Manager’s Control and
Monitoring page, Bruce controls and monitors the progress and outcome of the
deployment. On the target servers, the Deployment Service tells Content
Replicator to carry out the commands included in the jobs. The jobs are
executed in order. For example, one job downloads the content but does not
actually install it, while the next job performs the installation. This mechanism
enables Bruce, in this case, to distribute the content to all the servers without
disturbing existing content. Later, he activates the new content across multiple
servers in unison.

Managing Patches
DOC
This chapter describes Marimba’s Patch Management solution. It shows how

this solution gathers information about available patches, stores them in a
repository, and allows administrators to control how they are distributed to
endpoints throughout your enterprise. This chapter also briefly describes the
key benefits and features of this solution.
Patch Management
Description Automates the collection, analysis, auditing, and deployment of
security and functional patches for applications and operating
systems. This solution also provides a powerful repository for patches
across different operating systems.
Benefits • Automatically downloads patch information from third-party
vendors (such as Microsoft, Shavlik, and Sun Microsystems) into
a repository within your organization.
• Groups patches by function, operating system, or application and
then deploys them to target machines and patches across your
organization’s intranet or the Internet. You can also view reports
that detail the success or failure of your patch distribution on each
target machine.
• Facilitates testing patch deployments and simulating how they will
affect a given machine before they are installed. You can also
determine the sequence of installation actions and avoid costly
errors by considering the dependency relationships among
patches—before they are installed.
Related Patch Management Administrator’s Guide
Documentation Patch Management Release Notes
Managing Patches 43
How It Works
How It Works
The following diagram shows how the components of Marimba’s Patch
Management solution interact to collect patch information from patch vendors
and to manage their distribution to target endpoints.
Patch Vendors
Mirrors, Repeaters, Proxies
Master Transmitter
Patch Manager and

Policy Manager browser-
based applications Directory Service Database
Console Server
Figure 13. Managing the Collection and Distribution of Patches Through Patch Management
The following steps show how Marimba’s Patch Management solution

facilitates the collection, analysis, and distribution of patches:

How It Works
1 Collect patch information. Patch Management enables you to collect patch

information from patch vendors, such as Microsoft or Sun Microsystems,
and store them in the patch repository (the database).
Scanner Service, a client agent, runs on each endpoint and collects
hardware, software, and system settings information at scheduled
intervals. In the case of Patch Management, Scanner Service collects
information about patches that are installed so that the information can be
sent to the database immediately. The Patch Service plug-in (the server-
side component) for the Patch Service also collects data from endpoints
and transfers that data to the central database. The patch source channels
on the transmitter connect to an external patch source (vendor) to fetch
patch information and the actual patch binaries. For example, the
Windows Patch Source channel connects to a Microsoft website to retrieve
patch information and binaries for the Windows platform.
Marimba’s Patch Management solution integrates with a third-party,
centralized, relational database to store information about patches. The
database serves as a patch repository and contains patch metadata,
including the patch source vendor’s and your own information about the
patch. It also contains information about which patches are installed and
which are missing on each endpoint.
2 Analyze and organize patches. After the patch repository is populated with
patch information, you view and analyze the information to decide which
patches are relevant to your enterprise. You leverage Marimba’s Inventory
Management solution and use filters to search for patches that affect the
operating systems and applications that you have. Finally, you organize
patches into groups that give you flexibility as you test, publish, and
distribute the patches.
The Patch Manager browser-based application runs on the Marimba
console and provides central management for the patches collected from
patch sources and distributed to endpoints. Patch Manager serves the
following roles:
• Displays patch repository details and allows you to update the patch
repository.
• Provides the interface for creating different types of patch groups and
publishing patch groups to the transmitter.
• Serves as the central location from which you configure all patch
management parameters used by Marimba Patch Management.
Managing Patches 45
3 Distribute groups of patches to endpoints. Patch Management leverages

Policy Manager to assign and distribute groups of patches to target
machines. You also manage how reboots take place and control how often
the target machines check for patch updates.
The Policy Manager browser-based application runs on the Marimba
console and enables you to assign patch groups to target machines. It also
allows you to view compliance reports for the target machines. The Policy
Service runs on each endpoint for which you want to manage patches. It is
responsible for downloading and applying the policy, including the patch
groups, assigned to each endpoint at the scheduled time. The Patch
Service channel also runs on the target endpoints and determines the
order for installing patches.

Marimba’s Patch Management solution is built on top of the same core
scalable and efficient than other solutions in its class. Marimba’s Patch
Gather patch information. Using Marimba’s Inventory Management solution,
administrators can scan for known virus risks and determine patch levels, and
then use the Patch Management solution to target devices for patch
deployment.
Manage patches for applications. Once you have deployed applications to
target endpoints using Marimba’s Application Management solution, you can
use the Patch Management solution to distribute patches for these applications
based on policies.
Distribute patches for content and data. If you have high-volume content and
data that you have distributed to endpoints using Marimba’s Content
Distribution solution, you can use the Patch Management solution to distribute
patches to that content and data. For example, you already have a large data
channel (created and distributed with the Content Distribution solution) that
contains all of the files for a particular website, and you want to distribute a
patch consisting of a couple of files that must be periodically approved and
updated. In this situation, you would want to create a Content Replicator patch
that contains only those two files. After the information in the files is updated,
you want to roll out that patch.

Scenario: Managing Patches for Various Operating Systems and Applications
Scenario: Managing Patches for Various Operating Systems

and Applications
Business need. The IT group at Acme, Inc. is responsible for maintaining a
high level of security across the company’s computing infrastructure. As
attention to security has increased, vendors have increased the number of
patches they issue to address security vulnerabilities, and they have increased
the frequency with which patches are issued.
The increasing number of patches has meant increased difficulty for the IT
group, who must keep pace with the latest patch information. Patches can be
complicated to install correctly because they often depend on other patches,
obsolete other patches, are obsoleted by other patches, or conflict with other
patches. The IT group’s task is further complicated by the fact that the
endpoints they must maintain include various operating systems and
applications.
How Marimba addresses this need. Marimba’s Patch Management solution
enables the IT group at Acme, Inc. to centrally and efficiently maintain patches
for endpoints with various operating systems and applications.
Once Patch Management is installed and configured, it automatically
downloads patch information from third-party vendors into a repository (or
database). Lucas, the IT administrator responsible for maintaining patches,
reads the patch descriptions and then searches the company’s inventory
database to see which endpoints match the operating system and other
characteristics of the patch. For example, because most members of the Sales
group are on the Windows XP operating system, he pays special attention to
Windows XP patches that are ranked critical.
After analyzing the new patches, Lucas organizes the patches into groups.
Patch groups give Lucas and the IT group broad flexibility in testing and
distributing patches. He has the option of grouping the patches by their
function, the operating system or application they apply to, or any other
characteristic.
Since Patch Management works in a network environment that includes
hetrogeneous platforms, Lucas, for example, puts together a patch group that
contains Solaris and various Windows patches. Only the patches compatible
with an endpoint’s underlying operating system would be installed. This
capability enables Lucas to organize patches by function or affected
application, regardless of the operating system associated with any individual
patch.
Managing Patches 47
Because installing critical patches has been a problem at Acme, Inc. in the past,
Lucas also specifies that whenever patches that are ranked critical (by the patch
vendor) are added to the patch repository, these patches will be distributed to
everyone in the organization. Lucas also makes use of dynamic patch groups to
organize these types of patches. A dynamic patch group uses the results of the
repository filter or a query to add patches to the group. For example, Lucas
creates a dynamic patch group that contains all Windows XP patches that are
ranked critical. When the patch repository is updated, all critical Windows XP
patches are automatically added to the dynamic patch group. To make sure
that appropriate attention is paid to critical patches, Lucas configures the
dynamic patch group so that he receives an e-mail notification every time a
critical patch becomes available.

Figure 14. Analyzing and Organizing Patches Using Patch Manager
When sensitive endpoints, such as those machines belonging to members of the

Sales group, are affected, Lucas tests the patch first and schedules the
installation at less disruptive times. Patch Manager and Policy Manager allow
him to test patch deployments and simulate how they will affect a given
machine before they are installed. He also determines the sequence of
installation actions and avoids costly errors by considering the dependency
relationships among patches—before they are installed.
Managing Patches 49
Finally, Lucas views reports that detail the success or failure of the patch
distribution on each target. Using Patch Management, he analyzes any failures
and retries the installation of patches, as well as keeps pace with the volume
and frequency of new patches.

Migrating Operating
Systems
DOC
This chapter describes Marimba’s OS Management solution, which automates

and manages the migration of the Windows operating system, applications,
and settings on laptops and desktops across your enterprise.
OS Management
Description Automates and accelerates many of the manual, repetitive tasks
associated with operating system migrations, including migration
planning, restoring user settings, application provisioning, migration
status checks, and ongoing maintenance of the operating system
and applications.
Benefits • Reduces administrative costs and accelerates the migration

process by automating repetitive migration tasks.
• Enables you to perform OS migration across your enterprise
from a central location without physically visiting each machine.
• Enables you to perform migrations with the least disruption to
business by allowing migrations to be scheduled during off-peak
hours or be started immediately.
• Offers ongoing management of the applications and operating
system on your endpoints.
Related OS Migration Administrator’s Guide

Documentation OS Migration Release Notes
Migrating Operating Systems 51

How It Works
How It Works
Marimba Migration Module is a browser-based application that runs on the
Marimba console, and allows you to control the migration process from a
central location without physically visiting each machine.
Applies new image -

including the OS,
applications, and
user settings MIrrors, Repeaters, Proxies
Master Transmitter
Migration Module
browser-based
application
Directory Service
Console Server
Figure 15. Migrating Machines from a Central Location Using Migration Module

The migration process includes the following steps:

1 Plan the migration. Migration Module leverages Marimba’s Inventory
Management solution to collect inventory information about the machines
in your environment, which is crucial for planning the migration process
and for preparing your machines for migration (for example, by ensuring
that they have the required RAM or disk space).
Migration Module communicates with the Marimba tuner and Marimba’s
service channels on machines, such as Scanner Service and Deployment
Service. This enables Migration Module to gather information from and
control the machines you want to migrate.
2 Perform the migration. Migration Module leverages third-party imaging
tools such as Symantec Ghost to capture the image (including applications
and settings) of a machine representing your standard configurations.
Migration Module then deploys this image (either based on a schedule or
immediately) to a group of targeted machines.
3 Verify the migration. Migration Module allows you monitor the progress of
the migration, and to ensure that each of the targeted machines has been
migrated to the new image.
After the migration is complete, Marimba products enable you to perform
ongoing policy-based application provisioning for your endpoints.

Marimba’s OS Management is built on top of the same core technology as other
Marimba solutions, and thus, integrates with the other solutions in the
following ways:
Identifying machines for migration. Report Center query results can be imported
into the Migration Module to help you construct a group of the machines that
you want to migrate, and machines you need to enhance before they can
qualify for migration.
Enabling policy-based application provisioning. After you have used Migration
Module to migrate targeted machines to a new operating system, you can use
Application Management for further policy-based application provisioning.
This ability removes the requirement to bundle the OS and applications into
massive images.

Scenario: Manual OS Migration Effort Overburdens IT Resources
Scenario: Manual OS Migration Effort Overburdens IT

Resources
Business need. The IT department at Acme, Inc. is overburdened with its OS
migration effort. They need to migrate all the Windows 98 and NT machines in
their company to Windows XP. The IT administrators at Acme, Inc. currently
do not have an automated way of performing OS migrations. Currently, the IT
administrators are configuring machines manually (such as reapplying the IP
address, computer name, and wallpaper configurations). This operation soaks
up valuable IT resources and is also error-prone. For example, several end
users at Acme, Inc. have lost their user settings because they were not
manually backed up before the OS migration. These human errors lead to a
loss of end user productivity and disrupt business.
Because of budget constraints, instead of the entire IT department performing
OS migrations, this task is assigned to one IT administrator, Bob. In addition,
there is increasing pressure from upper-management that end users experience
negligible or no down time during the migration, and that the needed
applications and the current user settings (like desktop settings, taskbar and
Start menu options, keyboard and mouse settings, screen saver settings,
mapped network drive settings, and so on) be restored on the machines.
How Marimba addresses this need. Marimba’s Migration Module helps Bob
accelerate and automate many of the manual, repetitive tasks associated with
operating system migrations, including migration planning, restoring user
settings, application provisioning, migration status checks, and ongoing
maintenance of the operating system and applications.
The first step in preparing for the migration is to ensure that all endpoints have
the Marimba tuner and Scanner Service installed on them. This enables
Migration Module to communicate with the endpoints and gather critical
information from them that aids the planning and monitoring of the migration.
On his Marimba console, Bob steps through Marimba’s Setup & Deployment
workflow to remotely deploy the tuner and Scanner Service on endpoints that
do not have a tuner installed on them. Bob then switches to the Migration
Module on his Marimba console to view a list of machines that do not have an
updated version of WMI installed on them. He steps through Migration
Module’s workflow to remotely install WMI on these endpoints. WMI enables
Bob to collect additional hardware and software information from his
endpoints, and helps Bob break up the large migration project into manageable
groups.

Bob now performs a query to see which machines in his environment qualify
for migration to XP, and also gather key information (for example, NIC
information). He notices that the Windows 98 machines do not have the
required RAM or disk space that Windows XP requires. Based on the query
results, he upgrades the RAM and disk space of these machines.
Now that the endpoints are ready for migration and Bob has enough details
about them, he starts creating target groups in Migration Module for the
migration. Instead of migrating all endpoints at the same time (which would
be an extremely daunting task), Bob decides to migrate manageable groups of
machines at a time. Bob creates the groups based on department; he includes
the machines in the Marketing department in one group, and the machines in
the Engineering department in another group. He also creates the groups based
on the type of NIC driver needed by the machines.
Bob uses Symantec Ghost (the imaging tool that Acme, Inc. has chosen to use)
to create an image of a model machine. The model machine acts as a template
for the migration targets; the image of the model machine is deployed to the
migration targets. Thus, Bob configures the model machine as he wants his
endpoints to be configured. This machine includes the tuner and is subscribed
to the Policy Service channel. This channel enables machines to subscribe to
applications (after the migration and on a ongoing basis) according to a policy.
Bob now starts to perform the steps to migrate the machines in his groups. He
uses Migration Module to deploy the Ghost client to targets. He then maps the
migration task that he had created in Symantec Ghost into Migration Module.
In the Symantec Ghost task, Bob had specified that user information be
grabbed from endpoint machines, and be restored after the migration. After
mapping the Symantec Ghost task into Migration Module, Bob starts to deploy
the image to a group of machines. To ensure that there is negligible or no
impact on end users, Bob schedules the migration to occur during off-peak
hours. Bob goes home, and the migration automatically starts at the scheduled
time.
The next day, Bob views the log and status information displayed in Migration
Module. Migration Module reports that 5 of the targets in the group have
failed to migrate to the new operating system. The screen capture below shows
just one of the machines that failed to migrate to the new operating system;
this machine does not have a green check next to it in the Image column.

Figure 16. Viewing Which Machines Migrated Successfully
In Migration Module, Bob drills down in the logs for the failed machines to
find the problem. After he fixes the problem, he creates another deployment to
migrate the failed targets. Again, he schedules this deployment to run during
off-peak hours.
After each endpoint is migrated, user information is restored on the endpoint
according to the configuration Bob had specified in Symantec Ghost. Also, the
Policy Service on each endpoint subscribes the endpoint to the applications
assigned to it according to the subscription policy. Policy Service enables Bob
to perform ongoing management of the applications on each endpoint.

What’s Next?
DOC
This chapter lists resources that you can use once you are ready to implement
Marimba’s solutions in your environment.
Available Marimba Resources

Resources Professional Services
Education Services
Documentation
Customer Care and Web Support Tools
Benefits These resources support you through various stages of using

Marimba’s solutions, such as:
• Planning the deployment of Marimba’s solutions.
• Implementing and deploying Marimba’s solutions.
• Maintaining and troubleshooting issues with Marimba’s solutions.
Professional Services
Marimba Professional Services (also referred to as Marimba Consulting) can
help you manage your Marimba implementation in its entirety, including:
Architectural design and review. Our consultants provide high-level consulting
to design an infrastructure suitable for your environment and for achieving
your goals.
Implementation and deployment. Our consultants use best practices and proven
methods to successfully deploy Marimba solutions across your enterprise.
What’s Next? 57
Education Services
Knowledge transfer. The knowledge transferred by our consultants enables

your staff to successfully manage your Marimba deployment. You can also
enroll in more extensive training, offered by Education Services.
For more information, see the Marimba Professional Services website at
http://www.marimba.com/services/.
Education Services
Marimba Education Services (also referred to as Marimba Training) offers
public or on-site training to help you implement and maintain our solutions.
With Marimba Education Services, you can expect:
Extensive curriculum. Marimba’s curriculum encompasses all phases of an
enterprise project, including architectural design, implementation, deployment,
and management.
Hands-on training. Lab-centric training courses enable you to learn about
Marimba’s products by using them. In addition, experienced trainers impart
best-practice knowledge developed from years of successful implementations.
Marimba certification. The Marimba Professional Certification Program enables
technical professionals to validate their Marimba product knowledge. Marimba
certification is recognized by Marimba’s customers, system integrators, and
partners as the best way for technical staff to possess and provide a high level
of Marimba expertise and best-practice knowledge, and to help reduce
operational risk.
For more information, see the Marimba Education Services website at
http://www.marimba.com/support/about-education.html.
Documentation
Marimba Documentation offers various resources to help you deploy,
implement, administer, and upgrade your Marimba solutions. With Marimba
Documentation, you can expect:
Extensive product documentation. Marimba offers various types of
documentation to address your needs, including online guides, online help,
information text and tooltips on product interfaces, and release notes.
Role, phase, and experience-based documentation. Marimba’s documentation
caters to all experience levels, roles, and phases—offering best-practice
knowledge in all cases.

Documentation
Road Map to Marimba Documentation

The following sections describe the available documentation resources and
explain how you can find the resources best suited for you.
Available Resources
Marimba offers various types of documentation to address your needs, as
described below:
Online guides offer comprehensive information about deploying,
administering, and upgrading Marimba’s products.
Context-sensitive online help is built into each Marimba product. When you
click Help from within a Marimba product, you obtain help pertaining to that
particular area of the product.
Built-in information text and tooltips on the browser-based applications guide
you in using the product. Advanced users, who are familiar with using
Marimba’s products, can disable the information text.
Release notes provide information such as the requirements for using Marimba
products, new features, known limitations, and so on.
Online guides and release notes are available on Marimba’s Documentation page
(www.marimba.com/doc/). To access online help, click the Help button from
within a Marimba application.
Finding the Resources Suited for You

Marimba’s documentation site offers you various tools and features to help
you obtain the documents that are most suited for you.
Search tool. Marimba’s documentation site offers a search tool for finding the
documents you need. This search tool offers a filtering mechanism to help you
limit your searches by product families and versions of the products. Note that
this search tool is only available on Marimba’s documentation site, and is
different from the general search functionality offered on Marimba’s website.
Sorted views. Marimba’s documentation site allows you to sort documents,
making it easy to find the documents you need. For example, you can sort
documents according to their title, or according to the product that the
documents pertain to, and so on.
Recommendations for customers. Marimba’s documentation site lists the
recommended documents for a particular role, phase, or experience level, as is
explained below:
What’s Next? 59
• Documents for a particular role, including the architect, developer,

packager, administrator, or operator.
• Documents for a particular phase, including the planning phase, the
customization phase, the packaging phase, and the production phase.
• Documents for a particular experience-level, including those who are
getting started with Marimba’s solutions, and advanced users who are
familiar with Marimba’s products and who need to customize their
deployment.

Marimba Customer Care (also referred to as Marimba Customer Support)
offers technical support and expertise when you need it. With Marimba
Customer Care, you can expect:
Technical expertise. Marimba Customer Care offers you comprehensive
support and service for all your Marimba implementations.
Level of service tailored to your company’s needs. Marimba offers three levels
of service (Gold, Silver, and Bronze) tailored to meet your specific maintenance
needs.
Web support tools. The Customer Care Center website offers registered users
self-service resources, including access to our extensive Knowledge Base, and
access to our online bug and RFE reporting and tracking system.
For more information, see the Marimba Customer Care website at
http://www.marimba.com/support/about_cust_care.html.

Index
DOC
A proxy 16
Active Directory 9 transmitter 15
ADAM 9 tuner 15
administration tools 23 core infrastructure administration tools 23
agent 15 core technology, Marimba’s 13
analysis, patches 43
D
Application Management solution 7, 31
database
Application Packager 32
used with Inventory Management 27
asset tracking 25
used with Patch Management 45
automated patch collection 43
Deployment Manager 24, 33, 39
B Deployment Service 33, 39
bandwidth throttling 9, 10, 36 differencing
byte-level differencing 9, 10, 36 byte-level 9, 10, 36
file-level 9, 10, 36
C distribution server 15
caching 16
channel 16 E
checkpoint restart 9, 36 encryption 9
client-server 17 endpoint tuner 15
CMS 22
F
Common Management Services. See CMS
fault-tolerance 9, 15
compression of data 9, 36
file-level differencing 9, 10, 36
console, Marimba
firewall 9, 16
components of 22
overview of 13, 21 H
Content Distribution solution 7, 37 HTTP 8, 16
Content Replicator 39
core components I
Marimba agent 15 infrastructure administration tools 23
Marimba distribution server 15 interaction 17
Introduction to Marimba Products 61

Inventory Management solution 7, 25 S
Inventory plug-in 27 Scanner Service 26, 45
security 8
L Setup & Deployment
LDAP 9
overview of 23
license compliance 25
software usage 25, 29
load balancing 9, 15
solutions
M Application Management 7, 31
managed node 15 Content Distribution 7, 37
Marimba agent 15 Inventory Management 7, 25
Marimba console OS Management 7, 51
components of 22 Patch Management 7, 43
overview of 13, 21 source machine 39
Marimba distribution server 15 SSL 9
master transmitter 15 subscribing to content 20
mirror transmitter 15 Sun ONE Directory 9
Symantec Ghost, integration with 53
N
NT domains 9
T
testing, patches 43
O transmitter 15
OS Management solution 7, 51 tuner 15
P W
packaging machine 32 Windows operating system, migrating 51
patch analysis and testing 43
patch collection, automated 43
patch deployment 43
patch groups 43
Patch Management solution 7, 43
Patch Manager 45
patch repository 45
Patch Service 46
Patch Service plug-in 45
patch source channels 45
patch vendors 45
plug-in 19
Policy Manager 24, 33, 46
Policy Service 33, 46
protocols
HTTP 8
SSL 9
proxy 16
publishing content 20
R
repeater transmitter 16
replicating content 20
Report Center 27
overview of 24

Intro Guide

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Introduction to

Marimba Product Line

Introduction to Marimba Products 3

4 Introduction to Marimba Products

Marimba Solves Today’s IT Business Problems

6 Introduction to Marimba Products

Introduction to Marimba’s Products and Solutions

The Marimba Advantage

Distribution servers are

Master Distribution Server

Marimba console offers

Centralized, remote deployment. Deploying technologies across a wide array of

8 Introduction to Marimba Products

Marimba’s standards-based technology enables IT departments to use their

• Byte-level and file-level differencing. Marimba optimizes bandwidth usage

The Marimba Experience

Deploying and Using Marimba Products

10 Introduction to Marimba Products

Marimba’s solutions offer enterprises different ways to distribute content in

The End-User Experience

How to Read This Guide

12 Introduction to Marimba Products

Core Technology and Console

Marimba Console Administrators use the Marimba console as the browser-based

Related Planning Guide

Marimba’s Core Technology and Console 13

Distribution servers are

Master Distribution Server

Marimba console offers

Figure 1. Architectural Overview of Marimba’s Core Components

The following sections describe Marimba’s core technology—including how to

Marimba’s Core Technology

14 Introduction to Marimba Products

Marimba’s Agent: The Tuner

Marimba’s Distribution Servers

Marimba’s Core Technology and Console 15

Repeater transmitter. You can use one or more repeater transmitters to

16 Introduction to Marimba Products

Flow of Content and Information in a Marimba Infrastructure

Preparing the Marimba Infrastructure

Marimba’s Core Technology and Console 17

Marimba Tuner on Endpoints

Third-Party Load Balancer

Directory Service Database

Figure 2. Sample Marimba Deployment

You need to manage and maintain the Marimba core components on an

18 Introduction to Marimba Products

Gathering Information from Machines

Distributing Content to Endpoints

Marimba’s Core Technology and Console 19

20 Introduction to Marimba Products

Figure 3. General Flow of Content in a Marimba Infrastructure

The Marimba Console

Marimba’s Core Technology and Console 21

example, you can use Marimba’s Inventory Management solution to identify

Figure 4. Applications Available from the Marimba Console

Marimba Console Components

22 Introduction to Marimba Products

Migration Module Patch Manager

Report Center Policy Manager Deployment Manager

Setup & Infrastructure

Figure 5. The Components of the Marimba Console