A management site always consists of one AppManager repository and at least one AppManager management server. A management site might have multiple management servers to distribute processing and communication for managed clients, but each management site has exactly one repository, and each management server communicates with only one repository.
In each management site, you can designate a primary and backup management server for each managed client computer by running the AMAdminUNIX_SetPrimaryMS Knowledge Script.
After you designate a primary management server, the agents communicate only with that management server. If communication with the primary management server is interrupted and you have identified a secondary management server, communication is automatically transferred to the secondary management server. When communication with the primary management server is interrupted and then restored, the agent resumes communication with that server. If you have not specified a secondary management server, data and events are stored locally on the managed client until communication is restored.
Explicitly designating a primary and secondary management server is the way most organizations handle failover support and control which management servers communicate with which agents.
You should always designate both management servers for UNIX and Linux computers. For more information about designating a primary and secondary management server for load-balancing and failover support, see the Administrator Guide for NetIQ AppManager.
The UNIX agent automatically restricts its management server communication to the management servers you specified during installation or the management servers that you designated using the AMAdminUNIX_SetPrimaryMS Knowledge Script, meaning the last management site added. Always run the SetPrimaryMS Knowledge Script after agent installation to properly designate primary and secondary management servers, or to add other management servers from additional management sites.
If you restart the agent using the -C option (cold start), the agent maintains only the primary and secondary management servers that you designated when you last ran the AMAdmin_SetPrimaryMS Knowledge Script. After you cold start, you need to re-designate the primary and secondary management servers from the other site.
If your site uses secure communication to communicate with UNIX agents, you can share the repository encryption key information with the additional repository using the nqKeyGenUNIX.exe utility and configure the additional repository to use the same security level for UNIX agent communications. Alternatively, you can create a separate encryption key for the additional repository if you use authentication.
In the Control Center Console, you can include both UNIX and Windows-based computers in a management group. However, in most cases, organizing UNIX and Windows computers in different server groups or views simplifies the maintenance of monitoring policies and Knowledge Script groups.