B
-
5
For products that work with TMCM 2.5/3.0 agents, one pre-condition is assumed.
The server relies on the fact that the agent can be reached by initiating a connection
from server to the agent. This is a so-called two-way communication product, since
both sides can initiate network connection with each other. This assumption breaks
when agent sits behinds a NAT device (or TMCM server sits behind a NAT device)
since the connection can only route to the NAT device, not the product behind the
NAT device (or the TMCM server sitting behind a NAT device). One common
work-around is that a specific mapping relationship is established on the NAT device
to direct it to automatically route the in-bound request to the respective agent.
However, this solution needs user involvement and it does not work well when
large-scale product deployment is needed.
The MCP deals with this issue by introducing a one-way communication model.
With one-way communication, only the agent initiates the network connection to the
server. The server cannot initiate connection to the agent. This one-way
communication works well for log data transfers. However, the server dispatching of
commands occurs under a passive mode. That is, the command deployment relies on
the agent to poll the server for available commands.
HTTPS Support
The MCP integration protocol applies the industry standard communication protocol
(HTTP/HTTPS). HTTP/HTTPS has several advantages over TMI:
•
A large majority of people in IT are familiar with HTTP/HTTPS, which makes it
easier to identify communication issues and find solutions those issues
•
For most enterprise environments, there is no need to open extra ports in the
firewall to allow packets to pass
•
Existing security mechanisms built for HTTP/HTTPS, such as SSL/TLS and
HTTP digest authentication, can be used.
Using MCP, Control Manager has three security levels:
•
Normal security:
Control Manager uses HTTP for communication
•
Medium security:
Control Manager uses HTTPS for communication if HTTPS
is supported and HTTP if HTTPS is not supported
•
High security:
Control Manager uses HTTPS for communication
