Novell ZENWORKS 10 CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT SP3 - SYSTEM PLANNING-DEPLOYMENT-BEST PRACTICES GUIDE 10.3 30-03-2010 System Planning Manual page 57

Servers can be members of multiple groups and L4 switch definitions.
Servers that are members of an L4 switch definition or group are no longer listed at the top
level of the server listing.
If there are no matching Closest Server Rules for a given device, the managed device falls back to
the default Closest Server Rule. This rule is an ordered list of all the ZENworks Configuration
Management Primary and Satellite devices installed in the Management Zone. The list must be
ordered so that all the ZENworks Configuration Management Primary Servers are at the top and all
the ZENworks Configuration Management Satellite devices are at the bottom.
You might want to exclude the default Closest Server Rule for the following reasons:
Agent refresh speed: When a device is refreshed, the applicable ZENworks Configuration
Management Primary and Satellite device list for a device is calculated, serialized, and sent via
the SOAP service. Excluding the default Closest Server Rule optimizes the response from the
server, which also shortens the time required to complete a refresh.
Satellite devices: Devices at one site should not attempt to access a Satellite device or Primary
Server at another location. Excluding the default Closest Server Rule ensures that a device only
connects to Satellite server if it is in the Closest Server rule for that subnet. If a Satellite device
is temporarily unavailable, this ensures that content is not pulled across a WAN connection by
local devices.
Server roles: If a Primary server is dedicated to a particular task, such as reporting, excluding
the default Closest Server Rule ensures that devices do not attempt to use this server for other
services.
Excluding Server Rules
Figure 4-12
If there are duplicate addressing schemes within the environment, such as if two remote sites both
use NAT (Network Address Translation) and the internal IP address scheme for both networks is
192.168.0.0, it is not possible for a Closest Server Rule to differentiate between the two subnets. The
solution is to configure Closest Server Rules for each of these subnets at the folder level and
override the Management Zone settings. This is successful only if the ZENworks folder structure
ensures that the device objects for the two subnets are in separate folders.
Performing Design Activities 57