Agent compatibility

The following table shows functional areas of the product that require the presence of a particular version of an RSCD agent.

Some organizations do not upgrade all servers at the same time they upgrade other system components. When upgrading from a previous release, you should be aware of server-based functionality that requires the presence of a certain agent version.

Functional area

Specifics

Atrium integration (BMC BladeLogic Integration for Atrium)

If you perform a fresh installation of a version 8.7 Application Server, Atrium integration is supported only for version 8.7 agents.

If you upgrade an Application Server to 8.7 from an earlier version, Atrium Integration is supported only with agents running an earlier version if the upgrade path for the Application Server included the version on which the agents are running.

BMC Decision Support for Server Automation

For inventory reporting, an agent must be running version 7.6 or later.

Deploy Jobs

  • Deploy Jobs to agentless devices require the Agentless Managed Object proxy to be running an 8.1 or later version agent.
  • BLPackage tracking requires an 8.1 or later version agent.
  • Version 8.1 agents or later versions support spaces in staging directory names on Windows servers.

Patch management

  • AIX — Requires AIX targets to be running 8.1 or later version agents.
  • Red Hat zSeries — Requires targets to be running 8.1 or later version agents.
  • SLES 11 — Requires targets to be running 8.1 or later version agents.
  • Windows and Solaris — Require agents of any version since 7.6. However, to run version 7.6, a special procedure must be performed. The procedure is described in the Upgrade Considerations section of the release notes for version 8.1.
  • Debian, Oracle Enterprise Linux, Redhat, and SUSE — Require agents to be running version 8.0 or later.

Note: To enable patch deployment on Windows servers where a version 8.2.0 agent is installed, additional steps may be required. See Enabling-deployment-on-Windows-servers. This requirement was eliminated for agents running version 8.2.1 or later.

Security

You must be running an 8.1 or later version agent to do the following:

  • Disable user privilege mapping for a server.
  • Create a unique password for the BMC Server Automation RSCD user on Windows servers.

Server Discovery

Requires an 8.1 or later version Atrium Discovery custom configuration object.

Virtualization/VSM

  • Citrix XenServer — Requires a Red Hat Enterprise Linux server configured as an AMO proxy, an 8.6 or later version Linux agent, and a Citrix XenServer custom configuration object.
  • Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (KVM) — Requires a Red Hat Enterprise Linux server running the Red Hat Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM), an 8.6 or later version Linux agent, and a Red Hat Enterprise Linux KVM custom configuration object.
  • Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV) — Requires a Red Hat Enterprise Linux server running the RHEV Manager, an 8.6 or later version Linux agent, and a Red Hat Enterprise Linux RHEV custom configuration object.
  • IBM PowerVM — Requires an AIX server configured as an AMO proxy, an 8.6 or later version AIX agent, and an IBM Configuration custom configuration object.
  • Solaris — Requires a Solaris Global Zone, an 8.6 or later version Solaris agent, and a Global Zone custom configuration object.
  • VMware — Requires a vCenter host server running an 8.6 or later version of a Windows x64 agent and a VMware vCenter Server custom configuration object.
  • Microsoft Hyper-V — Requires a System Center — Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) running an 8.6 or later version Windows x64 agent and a Microsoft VMM custom configuration object.

Configuration Objects

Configuration Objects such as 'Unix Users', 'Processes', 'Hardware Information' and the Virtualization objects require the RSCD agent version to match the application server version for full compatibility. For example, if you are using the VMware configuration object to manager vCenter, and your application server is 8.6.00, the RSCD agent on the vCenter server must also be 8.6.00, and the version of the configuration object deployed to the target would be 8.6.00.

Built-in configuration objects (such as Unix Users, Unix Groups, Processes, or Daemons) are part of the RSCD installation.

 

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