What is the best method to move (re-allocate/reinstall) my current ADNM

[mbraeken]

Hello,

A while ago we migrated to Avast!. As with all new products, it was first intrusively tested to see whether no dead bodies were hidden in de closet  .

Now we have completed succesfully our testing. All of our clients are running Avast! and the first servers are being migrated to run the Avast Server edition version.

ADNM was for testing purposes setup on a Windows XP Professional workstation. We have a virtual server running with our old antivirus management console which will be decommisioned soon and which will make place to host the ADNM for managing our Avast netclients and server editions on our network.

Now my question:
What is the best method to move away from my Windows XP Professional test-ADNM towards the dedicated virtual server platform ?
Should I just install ADNM on my virtual server and deinstall ADNM on my WinXP ? Will the netcliets automatically switch over and know they need to communicate with the new installation ?

What about my development of reports etc which was done on the WinXP ? Can it be transferred in any way ?

Gratefull to put me in the right direction...

Kind regards,
Mario

[scythe944]

I was wondering the same thing.  I might have to do this within a few months.  There might be some instructions in the ADNM Manual, but I haven't looked yet.

I assume you have that manual, but if not, it's available here: http://files.avast.com/files/eng/adnmag.pdf

[mbraeken]

Hey,

I will know tonight... our deployment of Avast Server Edition to all servers is planned for tonight (ADNM too)
I have been looking arround (also via the site map) on the website and must say that there's no documentation/manuals available whatsoever on the server edition. The one pager on how to install can hardly be called a manual...
To be honest - that does not give me a good feeling about our migration tonight: what if things do not go as planned

Our previous antivirus solution did not run on all our servers, for good reasons. At this moment, there's not one document available that tells you, that you should or should not run Avast Server Edition on a MS ISA firewall or what are the recommended settings on a MS Exchange 2007, SharePoint WSS 3, a Windows Server 2003 running oracle or SQL ...
I believe that every IT professional who's serious about his work, is looking for these details, prior to just go installing things in the wild and see what happens next.
I also believe that if things go wrong, and eg. Exchange 2007 goes down - better find a place to hide as it will stop our business completely.

See you later...

[mbraeken]

After a far from smooth migration to Avast on our Exchange 2007, I did not dare to tough our ADNM...
Will come back to this when I have the Exchange running Avast...

Cheers,
Mario

[wpn]

i believe that u can do a restore with the maintainance tool

u just need to find ur backup from the database at: %AVASTPATH%\Data\Backup\Database 

in the new server u can do the restore

in the ADNM admin console right click on the COMPUTER CATALOG (in case u use only 1 AMS, and u have all ur clients under that folder) and choose properties, in the COMMUNICATION option u can give the IP from the new AMS location, additionally there is a checkbox that says to find another server if this current one is not reachable.... so it should detect ur new server automaticly if i understand wel, but ofcourse this takes a bit more time to find.....

to the avast programmers: i would like to see a button on that spot to detect a new server and have it choosen from a dropdown menu like it is done with creating the packages, would be a major step to make hardware migrations easier

to the avast experts: if my theory above is not correct, please correct me since i just theorised this by looking up options that i could find and not reading anything about this in manuals

[mbraeken]

Great, thanks !

I will try this and post my comments back.

Cheers,
Mario

[Gisabun]

Hey,

I will know tonight... our deployment of Avast Server Edition to all servers is planned for tonight (ADNM too)
I have been looking arround (also via the site map) on the website and must say that there's no documentation/manuals available whatsoever on the server edition. The one pager on how to install can hardly be called a manual...
To be honest - that does not give me a good feeling about our migration tonight: what if things do not go as planned

I think maybe it's time for a more detailed manual. There is just too many things unexplained. You go through certain sections and half of the screen is not even mentioned  -yet it's there.

I'm not sure if a hard copy of the manual is included anywhere but what's the harm of adding some detailed information.

Another software package [and not from a big company] did a minor release [6.3 to 6.4] and the manual went from 200 pages to over 300. Comparing the two I can finally under stand what to do with the product. All they added was 1 chapter but expanded or rewrote the others.

The manual - or the web site - should have procedures such as moving ADNM from one server to another, deployment, etc.

[mbraeken]

Exactly !

I 'm sure the knowledge is somewhere - the trick now is to get it in distributable form and accessible for the public to learn from it...

Cheers,
Mario

[Infratech Solutions]

Hi,

You can use the ADNM Administrator's Guide (http://files.avast.com/files/eng/adnmag.pdf)

In Chapter 10, Section 3 you have:

10.3 Moving AMS to Another Machine

I hope this can help you.

[mbraeken]

Hello,

Thanks ! I have migrated the ADNM installation, following Chapter 10.3 of the ADNM guide
My clients (laptops and desktops) did not automatically move towards the new installation. It's not really feasible to log on to each client and do the manual switching of their ADNM. It would cost me time that I don't have...
So I was wondering: if I startup the Avast Management Server service again on the old ADNM server, and change the AMS address (to point to the new ADNM server) under Communication in the properties of the Computer Catalog, won't that update the clients to go and look for the new one ? Sounds more logical to me, and would save me a lot of time...

Note that all of my servers (physical and virtual ones) moved without changing anything manually towards the new ADNM...
Only difference I can see at the moment is that the VLAN with our desktops and laptops is not the same as the VLAN with our servers (and also the new ADNM): different subnet, but both subnets can route traffic between eachother. The old ADNM was residing in the same VLAN of the laptops and desktops, but found all machines on our network (servers included)...


Cheers,
Mario

[mbraeken]

Note:
It seems that it did the trick (telling your clients on the old ADNM that there's a new one on the network and that they should talk to that one).
Maybe it can be added to Chapter 10.3 as a step before shutting down the Avast Management Server Service ?
Shutting down the service should be down when all clients appear with a green icon on the new ADNM, and get a black icon on the old ADNM...

This really saved me a lot of time: imagine I had to visit all clients and change the local Avast4.ini, change the registry and restart the Avast NetAgent service...

Cheers,
Mario