Dispatchers

At Topology > Dispatchers, you can configure Dispatchers. A Dispatcher is a service running on a computer, and communicates information from the Datastore to Agents. A Dispatcher can cache Resources in order to reduce network traffic. If new Jobs are available for Agents to which it connects, the Dispatcher will download all necessary data from the Datastore and store it. The Agents will use this data to execute the Jobs.

• A Ivanti Automation environment can contain several Dispatchers. One Dispatcher suffices for 1000-1500 Agents.
• The column Connections (poll|push) shows the number of currently connected Agents or Agents+, and the column Peak (poll|push) shows the maximum number of Agents or Agents+ that have connected concurrently to each Dispatcher. The first value relates to the poll communication between Dispatcher and Agent or Agent+ using port 3163. The second value relates to the communication between Dispatcher and Agent+ using port 3162 (or configured differently). The statistics are updated approximately every thirty seconds if the Dispatcher is active. Every time the Dispatcher service is restarted, the counter is reset.
• The column Roles shows which Dispatcher role is assigned:
  • Housekeeping role (Housekeeping tasks of Dispatcher)
  • Licensing role
  • Telemetry role (Telemetry tasks of Dispatcher)
• The column Database Encryption shows whether protocol encryption is used for communication between the Datastore and the Dispatcher. This setting is applicable for a Datastore based on Microsoft SQL Server. See also Protocol encryption.
• The column Dispatcher Encryption shows whether protocol encryption is used for communication between the Dispatcher and the Agents. See also Connection settings.

Adding Dispatchers

• Before you deploy new Dispatchers, ensure that the target computers meet the prerequisites.
• The Datastore contains a 32-bit and a 64-bit version of the Dispatcher installation file. When you deploy a Dispatcher from the Console, Ivanti Automation will automatically use the correct installation file for 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows versions.
• You can also deploy Dispatchers manually or unattended. See Components.
• New Dispatchers that are deployed from the Console always take on the Global Settings (Setup > Global Settings). If necessary, you can edit these settings for individual Dispatchers after their deployment.

Configuration

Properties tab

If Dispatchers are identified by MAC address or by Domain name/NetBIOS name, this information will be shown in the field Identified by. This field is not shown if components are identified by their GUID. You can change the way in which components are identified in the Global Settings.

Settings tab

Except for the settings Housekeeping, Licensing and Exclude from Dispatcher list, you can choose for each setting whether to use Dispatcher-specific settings or global settings.

• You can assign the Housekeeping role to one or more Dispatchers so you have more control on which Dispatcher the housekeeping tasks are performed. Only one Dispatcher will be responsible for running the housekeeping tasks at one time. For performance reasons it is advised to choose a Dispatcher near the Datastore.

Dispatcher Web API

The availability of a Web API on the Dispatcher provides full support for building and deploying RESTful and SOAP web services. This allows you to integrate Job scheduling in external systems. See Web API.

• If a Dispatcher is offline, a warning sign will be shown in the Dispatchers node.
• Enabling or disabling the Auto-Refresh option to automatically update items affects ALL nodes in which this functionality is available (all Jobs and Topology nodes).
• Dispatcher services will automatically restart if they fail.
• The Dispatcher logs all events in the Event log, which can be viewed with e.g. the Event Viewer that is part of the Microsoft Windows Operating System.
• When deploying components from the Console on machines running Microsoft Windows Vista or higher, disable the User Account Control feature, as this feature does not support silent installations.

If the bandwidth in your Ivanti Automation environment is limited, you can set up master caching. By assigning a master caching Dispatcher, only this Dispatcher is allowed to download Resources from the Datastore. Other Dispatchers will download Resources from the master caching Dispatcher. This reduces bandwidth consumption between the Dispatchers and the Datastore. See Master caching.