Overview of Management & Control Services

Attachmate Management & Control Services (MCS) is a Web-based server console that administrators can use to centrally manage and configure Attachmate management components. Some components do not make use of all MCS features. The primary purposes of MCS are to provide:

• A common interface for creating and storing data, such as session configurations and task files.

• A central runtime facility for client applications that need to access and use that data.

• Management tools for monitoring and reporting how compatible products are being used.

Since MCS is accessed using a Web browser, you can run the MCS console from the same machine on which MCS is installed, or remotely via an intranet or Internet connection.

MCS Features

Following is a list of the product management and control features that MCS provides:

• MCS Internal Security

  MCS provides the following security devices for determining who can access and use the MCS console:

  • Authentication—Specify the level of user authentication required to access the MCS console and write configurations to MCS. In addition, you can specify whether or not users can save their user name and password locally in a cookie (so that they don't need to log in each time they access MCS) and whether or not they are required to access MCS through a secure port.

  • Rights Management—Specify which members of the directory listing can access and use the MCS console.

  • Directory Services—Manage MCS users and groups using the internal MCS directory service, or incorporate a user and group list maintained in an external directory service (LDAP, NIS, or NTDS).

• Security Services

  Make use of a secure port that implements Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) 3.0 and Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.0. This includes authenticated and encrypted sessions between the server and clients.

• Licensing and Metering

  Report current and historical usage of client applications, including summary statistics on maximum usage. MCS calculates usage by tracking the consumption of client licenses.

• Server and Cluster Management

  Access and configure servers and server clusters on which one or more MCS-compatible products are installed. You can control which server is the primary server in a cluster, manage server clusters, and remotely configure the directory service and security settings for managed servers.

• ID Management

  Manage and distribute host access IDs for users of client applications.

• Events and Tracing

  Trace, store, and view events generated by MCS itself, as well as events generated by MCS-managed products. Tracing can be enabled as needed for MCS and for MCS-managed products.

	Using MCS for the First Time