KBI 311014 New Feature: Daughter Engine With Reversed TCP Connection
Version
Argent Advanced Technology 3.1A-1407-A and later
Date
Thursday, 24 July 2014
Summary
Customer installs Daughter Engine to monitor remote network connected with slow or unreliable link
By default, remote Daughter Engine initiates TCP connection to exchange information with the Mother Engine
This default architecture has the minimum configuration on network, because customer only needs to open up a single port firewall at Main Engine to allow all the Daughter Engines to connect
But this network configuration is not always available
For example, some organization assigns security level to different network segments
TCP connection can only be initiated by server at higher security level to connect to any server at network segment of lower security level
If Daughter Engine is installed at a network segment of lower security level, the default installation of Daughter Engine will not work
Argent AT 3.1A-1407-A implements Daughter Engine with reversed TCP connection
In such architecture, it is the Mother Engine that initiates the TCP connection and connects to the remote Daughter Engines
Customer runs Argent AT setup to install such a Daughter Engine
The only difference is to make sure the option ‘Connect From Main Engine To Remote Component‘ is checked
After the Daughter Engine with reversed TCP connection is installed, Argent AT Mother Engine won’t discover this Daughter Engine automatically as usual
This is because the installed Daughter Engine does not initiate the TCP connection; it simply sits there waiting for Mother Engine to contact instead
Customer needs one more extra step to connect to such a Daughter Engine with reversed TCP connection
Customer will be prompted for the remote Daughter Engine to connect
After successful connection, the remote Daughter Engine will show up in the list of Known Regional Supervising Engines, and it can be used as usual
Technical Background
Normally Daughter Engine not only connects to Mother Engine, it also fire events directly to Argent Console engine through TCP connection
In the case of Daughter Engine with reversed TCP connection, the Daughter Engine does not directly connect to Argent Console engine any more
Instead, it puts requests in the work order and uploads to Mother Engine
Mother Engine fires events on behalf of the Daughter Engine
The auto correction and escalation work in similar behavior too
Resolution
Upgrade to Argent AT 3.1A-1407-A or later