KACE
AppDeploy

The Platform Layer

Enabling Rapid Deployment and Reliability

The physical KBOX appliance is easily deployed, being comprised of a 1U rack-mountable server with multi-core processors, dual gigabit Ethernet ports, optional redundant power supplies, and hard disks in a RAID configuration. This hardware configuration provides excellent reliability and performance through hardware redundancy and resource configuration mapped to the needs of the KBOX management services and application services layers. Virtual KBOX appliances are also an option and can be deployed directly on VMware Virtual Infrastructure.

The software platform is composed of mature, open source-based infrastructure components that provide a secure, stable and cost effective computing environment. Leveraging open source components allows the operating environment to be precisely tuned to optimize the management and application layer functionality of the KBOX. These components can also be tightly controlled to provide a secure, hardened environment that only runs services that are necessary for the KBOX management and application layers. This eliminates security vulnerabilities that can exist if unnecessary platform services are running.

With the pre-configured standard form factor the deployment of the KBOX appliance platform is simple, requiring only minimal initial network addressing as part of the boot up process. The KBOX uses standard protocols making it easy to deploy behind the firewall or in the DMZ depending on the security and connectivity requirements of the managed systems.

This function-specific design is a key advantage of appliance architectures in general, and for the KBOX specifically, as it enables delivery of superior performance, reliability and ease of deployment.

KBOX Systems Management Appliance

Single, Integrated Agent

The KBOX agent architecture is designed to keep deployment and maintenance costs to a minimum. A single, integrated agent supports all of the KBOX functionality, which speeds deployment. Agentless scanning is used to speed the initial deployment of the KBOX agent by identifying all available systems for agent installation, and then installing agents on these systems. KBOX offers organizations a wide variety of mechanisms for initial agent deployment including directly pushing the agent from the KBOX, download from the KBOX User Portal and login scripts. This flexibility ensures that organizations can quickly and efficiently deploy the KBOX agent regardless of their network and security infrastructure.

After initial deployment, KBOX’s agent auto-upgrade feature allows automatic upgrade of agents to new versions, eliminating the need to provision new agents when upgrading the KBOX. KBOX agentless scanning also eases maintenance by quickly identifying any new systems attaching to the network that require management, and automatically pushing the agents to them.

KBOX Systems Deployment Appliance

Agentless Deployment

Agentless deployment makes deploying and administering the KBOX 2000 Series extremely simple. Unlike traditional provisioning solutions, no agents need to be deployed and maintained. Instead all deployments from KBOX can be executed over the network from the centralized KBOX deployment library. Agentless deployment reduces provisioning complexity, and also improves deployment efficiency and reliability, by ensuring that all deployments can be conducted remotely from a centralized, trusted library.

The KBOX agentless, network-based architecture utilizes PXE standards to provision any LAN connected x86-based system. When PXE enabled systems boot, their local DHCP server directs them to network boot from KBOX instead of from their local hard drive. These systems appear as available for deployment tasks in the KBOX deployment console, and administrators can immediately schedule provisioning tasks such a capturing or deploying an image. Administrators can also manually add systems to KBOX via their MAC addresses before systems have booted from KBOX, so that provisioning tasks can be scheduled for initial boot to KBOX. These agentless capabilities not only reduce initial deployment costs, but also reoccurring maintenance costs since no agent maintenance or updates are required.