How to use the guide

The process of getting IBM® BigFix® Remote Control up and running varies, depending on your network environment and the management granularity you want to achieve. The installation guide focuses on three types of deployments:

Peer to peer

Is the simplest scenario and therefore ideal for small deployments. All targets are in network sight of the controllers and there is no requirement to centrally manage the controller policies.

Intranet managed

Are most appropriate in a complex network infrastructure that requires the deployment of gateways to traverse firewalls, or there is a requirement for strict policy control and centralized auditing.

Managed

With support for internet sessions where at least one broker must be installed in an internet-facing computer so that it is visible to targets outside the controller's network sight.

For the sake of readability and generality, the installation guide assumes the following restrictions:

• Each IBM BigFix Remote Control server must have access to one of the supported database servers. The database can be located locally on the server computer or remotely on a separate server. The supported database systems are DB2, Oracle, and MS SQL. It is also possible to install the server by using the embedded Derby database that is provided by the installer. However, this configuration is not supported for production deployments.
• In managed environments, each controller can make an HTTP or HTTPS connection to the IBM BigFix Remote Control server.
• In managed environments, each IBM BigFix Remote Control target computer in the network must be able to make an HTTP or HTTPS connection to a server, a gateway, or a broker on the specified ports.

If your network configuration does not match any of the scenarios in that chapter, contact a support technician for more options.

The initial deployment of a minimal managed IBM BigFix Remote Control system (server and a few targets) can take approximately 1 hour to complete.

Several steps in the IBM BigFix Remote Control installation depend on the completion of prior steps. For this reason, it is recommended that you follow the guide in the order presented.