The Symantec IT Management Suite 8.1 Administration course is designed for professionals tasked with using Symantec IT Management Suite (ITMS) to manage their software and hardware resources in their organizations. This five-day, instructor-led, hands-on course teaches students the underlying components and concepts of the Symantec Management Platform along with the Symantec Management Console that is used by ITMS to perform its management functions. Students learn how to use ITMS software solutions to collect inventory, manage their software, account for and track assets, apply software updates and to manage license compliance. Students also learn how to use the platform consoles and reports to analyze and monitor their environment.

Associated certification:

• Exam 250-447: Symantec Client Management Suite 8.5 Technical Specialist

By the completion of this course, you will be able to:

• Discover and import computer and user resources that you want to manage
• Gather hardware, software and operating system inventory
• Remotely manage computers
• Maintain a software repository
• Deliver software to managed computers
• Meter and track software on managed computers
• Distribute software updates to managed computers
• Establish and maintain relationships between assets
• Employ contracts and procurement processes
• Analyze gathered data using predefined & custom reports

The following modules are included in the course and are based on typical use cases that are designed to meet business or operational objectives and are common to the administration of Symantec IT Management Suite 8.1

Lesson 1: Discovering Resources within the Environment

Introducing Resource Discovery

• The case for resource discovery
• Stand resource discover methods
• Resource discovery process and methods

Using ITMS to Discover and Import Resources

• Network discovery with ITMS
• Importing resources from active directory
• Importing resources using the data connector

Adding ITMS inventory to resources

• Gathering computer information using inventory solution policies and tasks
• Standalone inventory
• Introducing targeted software inventory
• Custom inventory
• Agentless inventory
• Introducing file baseline and registry baseline tasks

Validating ITMS discovery processes

• ITMS increases the visibility of resources
• ITMS increases the organization of resources
• ITMS allows for efficient management of resources

Lesson 2: Reducing Desk-side visits with Remote Support

Agent Health

• Working with agent health settings
• Configuring agent health settings
• Determining agent health in the agent GUI
• Agent health status
• Agent health summary

Introducing Remote Access Connector

• About remote access connector
• Creating a template configuration file
• Editing the configuration file
• Using the right-click menu

Overview of Real-time System Manager

• Overview of real-time system manager
• How RTSM works
• Connection profiles and credentials
• RTSM right-click tasks
• RTSM server tasks
• Remote management reports

Lesson 3: Business Analytics & Reporting

Introduction to reporting

• Walkthrough of available reports and ITA

Standard reporting

• Creating reports
• Running reports
• Filter report builder -> reports

IT Analytics Reporting

• Configuring it analytics solution
• Cube reports, KPIs and dashboards

Lesson 4: Effective Software Management

Software Management Overview

• The case for effective software management
• Software management overview
• Components of software management

Discovering Software Information in the Environment

• Methods for gathering software inventory
• Software inventory reporting

Developing the Software Catalog

• Creating and configuring software components
• Creating and configuring software products

Managing the Software Catalog

• Ongoing software management in the software views
• Managing software in the software views
• Maintaining the software repository

Efficient Software Distribution

• Methods for delivering software
• Delivering software using tasks
• Delivering software using managed policies
• Delivering software through a request process

Enforcing Software Use and Execution

• Tracking software usage on managed computers
• Execution control using application denial policies
• Reviewing application denial reports

Lesson 5: Improved Security Through Automated Patch Management
Patch Management Solution Overview

• Objective and approach to patch management
• ITMS patch management solution and the 4-A model

Using Patch Management Solution for Windows

• Patch Management within the 4-A model
• Patch Management in the Assessment phase
• Patch Management in the Analysis phase
• Patch Management in the Application phase
• Patch Management in the Advancement phase

Lesson 6: Identifying Relationships Between Assets

Asset Management Overview

• The case for asset management
• Asset management components within ITMS

Planning the Asset Management System

• Relationship of assets, configuration items and resources
• Determining resources to track
• Elements of the resource model

Preparing Resources

• Creating custom resource components
• Preparing organizational and financial resources
• Configuring asset settings

Populating Resources

• Resource population methods
• Populating data with the data connector
• Creating data source definitions
• Creating and scheduling data transfer rules

Asset Automation & Maintenance

• Performing asset automation & maintenance tasks
• Populating asset data using CMDB rules

Reporting on Resources

• Asset management reports
• Running organizational types reports
• Reviewing KPIs and dashboards
• Working with IT analytics asset management reports

Lesson 7: Understanding Software License Compliance

Software Asset Management Overview

• Software asset management overview
• Identifying software licenses

Recording Software Licenses

• Software license management data
• Recording device based software licenses
• Recording user based software licenses
• Recording hardware based software licenses

Inventory of Software Installation and Usage

• Maintaining software asset relationships
• Ensuring a consistent software inventory baseline
• Application metering and tracking for use in SLM

Comparing Licenses with Inventory

• Software utilization and usage summary data
• Analyzing device based software compliance
• Analyzing user based software compliance
• Analyzing hardware based software compliance

Remediation of Software License Discrepancies

• Reporting on software license compliance
• Notification of software license position
• Software license harvesting
• Control of software access and usage

Lesson 8: Managing Contracts

Working with Contracts

• Contract management challenges
• Preparing to create contract resources
• Creating contract resources
• Configuring automation policies
• Running contract report

Working with Procurement

• Overview of procurement management
• Preparing the procurement environment
• Requesting, ordering, and receiving purchases
• Running procurement reports

This course is for IT administrators who will be maintaining and installing software, taking inventory of computers, distributing software updates to computers, performing asset management functions or remotely managing computers using any of the following Symantec suites:

• IT Management Suite 8.1
• Client Management Suite 8.1
• Asset Management Suite 8.1
• Server Management Suite 8.

You must have a basic understanding and working knowledge of Microsoft Windows (7, 8, 10, 2008, 2012) operating systems and optionally Linux and Mac operating systems