Symantec Access Management

Hello All,

Have a question regarding Heart Beat and PSPoll , request your input.

- What is the difference between heartbeat message and Polling that web agent does to Policy server (PSPOLLInterval) . Doesn't while polling Policy server know's that the web agent is active? Why there is a need for heartbeat message?

Thank You

Ankur Taneja

Heartbeat is used to for agent discovery only. It's frequency is by default once every 24 hours by default.

PsPollnterval is used to performed by web agent to check for new agent keys. This is more critical and needs to be done more frequently.

The default frequency is every 30 seconds.

Hello Ujwol,

Yes, i understand Heart beat is for agent discovery and PSPOLLINTERVAL is for polling interval to policy server for key's . But , PSPOLLINTERVAL is an ACO parameter and can be configured and changed in ACO. How heartbeat is configured? i hope this discovery is done by Policy server? 

Doesn't policy server already know which web agents are active as they are polling to policy server?

Thank You

Ankur Taneja

You said "How heartbeat is configured?"

Ujwol : 

To configure heart beat :

Configure the Policy Server Heartbeat Interval

The heartbeat interval helps Agent Discovery determine the state of an agent. When the agent does not send any heartbeat message beyond 24 hours, the state of the agent instance changes to inactive. You can configure the heartbeat interval to change the default value, which is 24 hours.

Follow these steps:

1. Open a command prompt in the computer hosting the Policy Server.

2. Enter the following command:

   XPSConfig

3. Enter SM.
4. Enter the value against the MinTimeBetweenAgentStatusUpdates option.
5. Enter C.
6. Enter the new value.
   Default: 24 hours
   Minimum: One hour
7. Enter Q three times.

You said "Doesn't policy server already know which web agents are active as they are polling to policy server?"

Ujwol -> Yes , you are right . it is just that we wanted to separate the two functionality. Agent Discovery has traditionally caused lot of issues and many of our customer wishes to disable it.

Hi Ankur, 

Refer : Agent Discovery - CA Single Sign-On - 12.52 SP1 - CA Technologies Documentation 

Regards,

Leo Joseph.

Thanks Leo

This clears a part of how HeartBeat is configured.

Thank You All for Inputs