(imported topic written by DennisA91)
The Wake on LAN Scheduling Wizard gives a warning if you’ve selected more than 2,000 computers to be woken. Is there a known limit in the Wizard on the number of subnets you can request in a single Fixlet or on the number of computers that you can select to wake up?
(imported comment written by BenKus)
Hi Dennis,
There isn’t a firm limit, but it does create a big action (which includes the MAC addresses and IP addresses for each computer to be woken up) and big actions will degrade performance over time…
The new Power Management version that we are working on will use a different mechanism to wake up the computers (similar to the current right-click WoL functionality) and it will not require that the agents run the action (and thus the limit will be removed)…
If you are careful and make sure to stop the WoL actions and delete them when not in use, then it probably is OK to use more than 2000 computers for the Schedule-based WoL.
Ben
(imported comment written by DennisA91)
Thanks for the info, Ben.
We are looking at a boundary condition where we’ll potentially have 25,000 to 50,000 computers spread across more than 2,000 subnets. All machines are on the same monthly patching cycle. We want to use the WoL feature to wake machines up during the regular monthly patching cycle, and potentially for dynamically scheduled urgent patch pushes as well. If we are going to schedule wakeups in the middle of the night, we need to include every machine on each subnet in the list of machines to be woken up, since we expect that most will have been put to sleep by their power profiles. We can create multiple actions, as you’ve suggested, with the current Wizard, but we will need to manually track which subnets are included in which actions - a bit of a daunting task to be sure.
We would be most interested in being part of the discussion on the new WoL feature in Power Management.
(imported comment written by BenKus)
Hey Dennis,
Are the computers expected to be in standby mode? If so, the Wake-from-Standby is a better approach that the Wake-on-LAN… The difference is that the Wake-from-Standby approach (see the wizard in the console) will have the computer wake itself up at a predefined time… The Wake-on-LAN approach requires all the complications of getting computers to wake each other up.
It sounds like a feasible approach would be to set the computers to wake up nightly (or once a week) at a specific time and they could get the patches/updates during that window.
Ben
(imported comment written by DennisA91)
Hi Ben,
The computers may be in Standby mode, or they may be powered off - the patch management team will have no control over their state. For this reason, the Wake from Standby option is not an option. The boundary condition is that all machines on each subnet will be powered off, but configured to be woken from the powered off state with a Magic Packet.
(imported comment written by DennisA91)
ADDED INFO - I used the Wizard to create a test WoL fixlet that will wake up 9,800 computers across 236 subnets. The Wizard itself did not encounter any issues - it just took awhile! Even thought the action itself is large and covers many subnets, only one line of the action script will execute on any given Last Man Standing (or other computer used for Wake Up purposes) on any given subnet.
(imported comment written by BenKus)
Hey Dennis,
When our next Power Management version is released, this particular task will get much easier to manage.
Thanks for sharing,
Ben
(imported comment written by jr6591)
I’m looking to create a fixlet that will wake-up all our desktops that are in standby mode every evening. In fact, I’d like to wake them up twice a night. Once at 1 am and and once at 4 am. Does someone have any recommendations as to what to do? Thanks
(imported comment written by BenKus)
I would suggest using the scheduled “wake-from-standby” wizard so that the computers wake themselves up… That will work better than requiring some other computers on the subnet to wake these computers up.
Ben
(imported comment written by jr6591)
At this time we are trying to use the WOL funtion. Wake from Standby adds a task to the scheduler which we are not looking at doing right now. An extra layer at the desktop which we are hoping not to add.
(imported comment written by SY57_Jim_Montgomery)
Ben Kus
When our next Power Management version is released, this particular task will get much easier to manage.
Is this next version coming out with version 8, or will we see it in a dot version before then?
Thanks!
–Jim
(imported comment written by jr6591)
Any suggestions on my previous post. If i have over 250 subnets, do i use the wizard and select all subnets and then select all computers (about 6000) in total? Thanks
(imported comment written by BenKus)
Hey jr,
It would be best to use multiple actions (maybe 3-4)?
The next version of Power Management will help this sort of thing a lot…
Ben
(imported comment written by naveedm)
Hey Jim,
The next version of Power Management will be released in the August time frame. Customers will be able to use it with both 7.X or 8.0, though I’d encourage using it with 8.0 as the console UI improvements in 8.0 are great.
Naveed
(imported comment written by SY57_Jim_Montgomery)
Thanks! I’ve definitely got an itch to get to version 8. Looking forward to the new Power Management!
–Jim