Microsoft KB Archive/258924

= SMS: Performance Problems and Information Loss Can Occur When a Child Site Reconnects to a Parent =

Article ID: 258924

Article Last Modified on 10/27/2006

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Systems Management Server 2.0 Standard Edition

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This article was previously published under Q258924



SUMMARY
When a child site reconnects to a parent site, potentially significant network performance issues can occur.



MORE INFORMATION
When a site connects to a parent, it bundles all the inventory in its database into a large binary file and sends it to the new parent, where it is expanded and written into the database. If there is a lot of inventory in the database, this can cause a significant load. This is true whether or not the child was connected to this parent site in the past.

Also, if the site has ever been connected to a parent previously, software distribution information might be overwritten. Software distribution objects such as packages and advertisements are locked when the definitions are automatically sent to all child sites. During a connect sequence, a dump of all these objects is sent to all child sites; as they are updated or created at the parent, the changes are forwarded to all child sites. If a child site disconnects, it gains ownership of these objects. At that point, the child site can edit and modify them as best fit the needs of that site. If the site reconnects to the site that originally owned the objects, or a child of the site that originally owned the objects, a fresh dump of all software distribution objects is forwarded to all child sites from the parent site that just had a child connect to it.

These object definitions overwrite any changes made to the object definitions at the parent while the child site was not connected. Any software distribution object definitions that are created at the child site are unaffected by object definitions created at a parent and forwarded down the hierarchy.

If the parent site, or any site above it in the path to the central site, was ever reinstalled or recovered, software distribution information might be overwritten as well. If a site is reinstalled without incrementing the serial numbers for its software distribution objects, and if it has ever distributed objects with the current serial numbers before, the earlier object definitions are overwritten by the new definitions.

If a child site was disconnected from a parent before a recovery operation was run without correctly incrementing the serial numbers, there is a risk of all serial-number-based definitions being overwritten after the connection to the parent is made. For example, if package number 14 originally distributed Microsoft Office, and after the reinstallation package number 14 is used to distribute Microsoft SQL Server, there is a possibility that SQL Server would be installed on all of the clients that should have had Office installed.

Additional query words: prodsms

Keywords: kbinfo KB258924

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