About Notification Server Hierarchy

Hierarchy is a technology designed to reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) of managing Symantec software and solutions across multiple Notification Servers. Hierarchy reduces the TCO by supplementing the Notification Server system with centralized management capabilities.
If you have multiple Notification Servers, you can use hierarchy to define collections of Notification Servers that share common configuration settings and data.
A hierarchy topology defines the relationships between Notification Servers, which in turn controls how synchronization occurs between adjacent nodes. Also, it defines schedules for synchronization.
A hierarchy topology complies with the following rules:
  • Each Notification Server can have zero or one parent.
  • Each Notification Server can have zero or more children. Symantec recommends that you have maximum six child Notification Servers per one parent.
Each child Notification Server computer is only aware of its parent and is unaware of other child Notification Servers.
You can manage from both the parent and the child Notification Server computers. If management is done from a parent server, it can apply to all of the child servers and their managed computers. If management is done from a child server, the task only applies to the child server’s managed computers.
For more information about implementing hierarchy, see the
IT Management Suite Administration Guide
.