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Centralized Management

WSM v11.4 introduces a new workflow related to the use of templates. While the new workflow gives you an unprecedented level of control and flexibility over the Firebox and XTM devices you manage, it is important that you understand this new workflow before you upgrade.

With WSM v11.4, devices no longer subscribe to configuration templates. Instead, you can create and apply multiple templates to your devices. When you apply a template to a device, the template content is merged with the most recent configuration file stored for the device on the Management Server and saved as a configuration file revision. The device always checks for and downloads its latest configuration file when it contacts the Management Server.

You can create multiple templates and apply them to a device or a group of devices in a set order, one at a time. To apply a template to a group of devices, you simply create a folder of devices and drag and drop your template into that folder.

Another powerful template feature new to WSM v11.4 is template inheritance. With this feature you, can determine if you want the value of a configuration setting in the template to override the value of the same setting in the device configuration file when the template is applied. If two templates have no configuration settings in common, you can apply them in any order. If two templates contain common configuration settings, you must apply them carefully in the desired order to make sure that any updates do not inadvertently override the settings already applied to the device, or use the new inheritance settings to control which policies are updated on your devices.

It is important to understand that changes to a template are no longer automatically applied to managed devices. You must now manually select which devices to apply a template change to. This gives you increased control over configuration updates for your managed devices.

If you used Centralized Management with devices subscribed to templates in earlier versions of WSM, when you upgrade from WSM 11.x to v11.4, these templates are updated and the devices are no longer subscribed (though you can continue to update the devices using the same template, subject to the workflow changes identified above). Each device retains its template configuration. Existing templates are updated to use “T_” in their object names (to match the object names in the devices that used to subscribe to them). After you upgrade, you’ll see the template upgrade that occurs during upgrade in your revision history.

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