The ZENworks Adaptive Agent is a part of the Novell ZENworks 11 software that lets your administrator manage devices over the network. The ZENworks Adaptive Agent, commonly referred to as the Adaptive Agent, provides services that help the administrator do the following without visiting your device:
Manage policies that determine the behavior of your device.
Deliver software, patches, and other files to your device.
Take inventory of your device’s hardware and software.
Provide data encryption.
Access your device from a remote location to troubleshoot and fix problems with hardware and software.
Each of these services is provided through the use of modules that plug in to the Adaptive Agent. Depending on the services implemented by the administrator, one or more of these modules might not be active on your device. For example, if your administrator does not intend to remotely access your workstation, the Remote Management module might not be installed on the device. Consequently, the Remote Management tab is not displayed in the ZENworks Adaptive Agent page on the device. To view which modules are active on your device, see Section 4.0, Status.
The Adaptive Agent connects to a ZENworks Primary Server. The Primary Server delivers policies and software for the agent to apply to your device, collects inventory information from the agent, and performs other services related to the management of your device. In some cases, your administrator might choose to have your device perform some of the duties of a Primary Server for other users in your system. As a result, your device might serve as one of the following:
A satellite: Satellites can perform any of the following roles for a Primary Server: Authentication, Collection, Content, Imaging, and Join Proxy.
A Windows Proxy: Windows Proxies perform discovery and deployment tasks that are Windows-based and cannot be performed by a Linux-based Primary Server.
A Linux Proxy: Linux Proxies perform discovery and deployment tasks that are Linux-based and cannot be performed by a Windows-based Primary Server.