This section provides the description or definitions of the terms used in Endpoint Central.
One or more well connected (highly reliable and fast) TCP/IP subnets. A site allows administrators to configure Active Directory access and replication topology quickly and easily to take advantage of the physical network. When users log on, Active Directory clients locate Active Directory servers in the same site as the user.
Domain is a group of computers that are part of a network and share a common directory database. A domain is administered as a unit with common rules and procedures. Each domain has a unique name.
An organizational unit is a logical container into which users, groups, computers, and other organizational units are placed. It can contain objects only from its parent domain. An organizational unit is the smallest scope to which a Group Policy object can be linked, or over which administrative authority can be delegated.
A collection of users, computers, contacts, and other groups. Groups can be used as security or as e-mail distribution collections. Distribution groups are used only for e-mail. Security groups are used both to grant access to resources and as e-mail distribution lists.
The people using the workstations in the network are called users. Each user in the network has a unique user name and corresponding password for secured access.
The PCs in the network which are accessed by users are known as computer or workstation. Each computer has unique name.
The expansion of IP Address is Internet Protocol Address. An unique IP Address is provided for each workstation, switches, printers, and other devices present in the network for identification and routing of information.
A Group Policy Object (GPO) is a collection of settings that define what a system will look like and how it will behave for a defined group of users.
Endpoint Central installs an Windows-compliant agent or a Client Side Extension (CSE) in the machines that are being managed. This is used to get the status of the applied configurations from the targets.
Define Target is the process of identifying the users or computers for which the configuration have to be applied. The targets can be all users/computers belonging to a Site, Domain, OUs, Groups, or can be a specific user/computer. You also have an option to exclude some desktops based on the machine type, OS type, etc.
Scope of Management (SOM) is used to define the computers that have to be managed using this software. Initially the administrator can define a small set of computers for testing the software and later extend it to the whole domain. This provides more flexibility in managing your desktops using this software.
In a Windows Domain there may be cases where the user accounts have been created for some machines but they remain inactive for some reasons. For example, users like Guest, IUSER_WIN2KMASTER, IWAM_WIN2KMASTER, etc., will never login. These user accounts are referred to as Inactive Users. In order to get the accurate configuration status of the active users, it is recommended that the Admin User add the inactive user accounts in their domain so that these users (user accounts) may not be considered for calculating the status.
Configurations that are intended for the same set of targets can be grouped as a collection.
This is a subset of the patches released by Microsoft that affect your network systems / applications. This includes all the patches affecting your network irrespective of whether they are installed or not.
This refers to the patches affecting your network that are not installed.
This refers to the patches pertaining to the recently released Microsoft bulletins.
This refers to the systems managed by Endpoint Central that requires the patches to be installed.
This refers to the systems managed by Endpoint Central that are vulnerable. This includes all the systems that are affected irrespective of whether the patches have been installed or not.
There maybe some vulnerabilities for which Endpoint Central is not able to determine if the appropriate patch or work around has been applied. There could also be patches for which manual intervention is required. These are categorized as Informational Items. Remediation of these issues usually involves a configuration change or work around rather than a patch.
These are patches that are outdated and have another patch that is more recently released and has taken its place (Superseding Patch). If these patches are missing, you can safely ignore them and deploy the patches that supersede them.
Some definitions are adapted from Microsoft Help Documentation.
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