Technical bulletins

This topic contains information about documentation updates for BMC Server Automation 8.2 that are not tied to urgent issues, maintenance releases, service packs, or patches.

BMC Server Automation advisory for Microsoft Windows Server 2003

Microsoft is ending support for Windows Server 2003 on July 14, 2015. After July 14, Microsoft will no longer issue security updates for any version of Windows Server 2003.

Overview

The BMC Server Automation Application Server will no longer be supported on Windows Server 2003, starting with version 8.7. On the OS front, BMC will not qualify Windows Server 2003 for any upcoming service packs or new releases of BMC BladeLogic Server Automation after July 14, 2015.

BMC is not planning to end support for Windows Server 2003 for RSCD agent versions (8.6 or lower). However, agent support in future versions is neither guaranteed nor expected.

Therefore, when BMC Server Automation version 8.7 (or another minor version is released after July 14 2015), you can upgrade your Application Servers to version 8.7 and continue to run RSCD agents 8.5 or lower on Windows 2003. However, in that scenario you would not have access to the features and bug-fixes available in the newer versions of the agents, unless you upgrade them.

Important

BMC typically supports backward agent compatibility between minor versions only, which means that you will be able to run 8.5 agents until BMC Server Automation version 9 comes out, at which point once you upgrade your Application Servers to version 9, you will also need to upgrade all agents to version 9 and will consequently lose any support for Windows 2003. 

The majority of use cases (such as configuration management, live browse, snapshots, audits, inventory, and so on) should continue to work on Windows 2003; however, there are two use cases which are expected to be significantly impacted: patching and compliance.

Implications for Patching

BMC Server Automation will not be able to support updates for patch catalogs for Windows Server 2003,  as Shavlik will not be providing updates for the Windows 2003 platform after July 14, 2015. As a result, you will not be able to use BMC Server Automation to patch security updates released after July 14, 2015. However, you can still use the existing catalog and updates available prior to the EOL date to patch the Windows 2003 servers.

Implications for Compliance

Existing compliance templates (for example, DISA CIS, and so on) for Windows Server 2003 available in BMC Server Automation version 8.6 or lower will continue to work. However, when Microsoft ends support for Windows 2003, BMC will no longer release new compliance content for Windows 2003. Updating content with the latest rules, templates, and remediation packages for Windows 2003 will be your responsibility.

Summary

Note that BMC’s support for any EOL OS platform, including Windows 2003, will continue on best-effort basis. BMC will continue to make put forth a best effort to provide fixes for new issues, however, such fixes are not guaranteed and will have lower priority than other supported OS versions, such as Windows 2008 and 2012.

Statement of support for Advanced Repeaters

Documentation for Advanced Repeater Servers and Advanced File Servers has been removed from the BMC Server Automation version 8.6 online technical documentation. 

After version 8.5, there are no plans to make any further changes to Advanced Repeaters, and no plans to ship updated installers for Advanced Repeaters.

However, the existing Advanced Repeater installers from version 8.5 will work with BMC Server Automation version 8.6 and with future releases. For information, see Working with Advanced Repeaters in the BMC Server Automation online technical documentation for version 8.5.

Addition of information related to BMC Atrium Service Context support

This space now includes information about supporting the BMC Atrium Service Context feature of BMC Atrium CMDB 8.0. See Integrating.

Addition of user-contributed content

This space now includes some topics containing user-contributed content, which present step-by-step tutorials for popular tasks in BMC Server Automation provided by BMC product experts. User-contributed content has not yet been approved by BMC. Those topics are labeled with "(user contribution)" in the topic title. These topics are interspersed with the existing user topics, however you can see a complete list of user-contributed topics here.

Integration of content from user guide

This space now includes all information that was formerly presented in the BMC Server Automation User Guide. Most of that information now appears as part of Using, but some information appears under other nodes in this space.

Addition of Frequently Asked Questions

This space now contains a list of Frequently asked questions (FAQ).

Known issues for Deploy Jobs

This space now lists known issues for Deploy Jobs. See Known-issues-in-Deploy-Jobs.

Support information

This topic now lists support level end dates for each version of BMC Server Automation. See Support-information.

Removal of Network Shell scripts syntax requirement

Previous to February 29, 2012, this space listed a requirement in version 8.2.00 that Network Shell scripts begin with a particular syntax. This statement has been removed, as the requirement was found to be unnecessary.

Addition of deployment architecture information

This space now contains information on the BMC Server Automation deployment architecture, including:

  • Deployment overview
  • Sizing and scalability factors
  • High availability and disaster recovery
  • Security considerations
  • Job behavior and resource usage

See Deployment-architecture.

This content replaces the following white papers:

  • BMC Server Automation Best Practices for Deployment and Configuration
  • BMC Server Automation Best Practices for Security

 

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