Initiate auto-upgrades of Agents

Connected lets you easily trigger auto-upgrades of Agents on a group-wide basis.

Each group has an Agent version setting that defines the minimum version assigned to all members of the group and any subgroup configured to inherit its parent's version. When you change a group's Agent version, the system notifies all applicable Agents so that they can begin a self-upgrade. To reduce the impact on local network devices, upgrade notifications stagger the start of the Agent upgrade process. Each notification includes a variable delay, based on the number of Agents, which can be anywhere from a few seconds to approximately 30 minutes. Once each Agent starts its upgrade, it downloads the specified version and upgrades to it. If an Agent is not running at the time the notification occurs, it will receive and process the notification the next time it connects to Connected.

NOTE:

The automatic upgrade process affects only Agents with versions earlier than the one assigned to the group; it does not downgrade Agents already at a later version.

For example, suppose that your Sales group is set to version 10.0 at the time Agent version 10.5 is released. After in-house testing of the new Agent, you make it available from the Downloads page. Mary, a member of the Sales group, happens to notice this new version available on the Downloads page so she downloads it and upgrades her Agent.

The next day, you upgrade the Sales group's Agent to version 10.3 instead of upgrading it directly to version 10.5. After you save the change, all Agents in the Sales group, including Mary's, receive an upgrade notification. However, Mary's Agent determines that its current version (10.5) is later than the one in the notification (10.3), so it stops processing the request.

Before you begin

  • Verify that all target computers meet Agent requirements.

  • Ensure that you understand roughly how many Agents your change will affect.

    If your only goal is to test a new Agent version, consider testing it on a limited subset of users, such as upgrading one of your smallest groups or creating a group specifically for testing users. For details about the impact that auto-upgrades have on network and system performance, see Understand the impact of group-related changes.

To initiate auto-upgrades of Agents

  1. Click the Hierarchy tab.

  2. Either browse to the group that you want to upgrade or search for it.

    To search for the group, click Search, and then enter the group name.

  3. Select the group, and then click EDIT (edit icon).

  4. Under Agent Version Selection, do one of the following:

    • For a top-level group, select an Agent version for each operating system.

    • For a subgroup:

      • To inherit the versions from the group's parent, select the Inherit settings from parent group check box.
      • To set group-specific versions, clear the Inherit settings from parent group check box, and then select an Agent version for each operating system.
  5. Click Save.