One of the ways the Security Agent determines which policy or profile to use is by checking its connection status with the Apex One server. If an internal Security Agent (or any agent within the corporate network) cannot connect to the server, the agent status becomes offline. The agent then applies a policy or profile intended for external agents. Reference servers address this issue.
Any Security Agent that loses connection with the Apex One server will try connecting to reference servers. If the agent successfully establishes connection with a reference server, it applies the policy or profile for internal agents.
Policies and profiles managed by reference servers include:
Firewall profiles
Web reputation policies
Data Protection policies
Device Control policies
Take note of the following:
Assign computers with server capabilities, such as a web server, SQL server, or FTP server, as reference servers. You can specify a maximum of 320 reference servers.
Security Agents connect to the first reference server on the reference server list. If connection cannot be established, the agent tries connecting to the next server on the list.
Security Agents use reference servers when determining the antivirus (Behavior Monitoring, Device Control, firewall profiles, the web reputation policy) or Data Protection settings to use. Reference servers do not manage agents or deploy updates and agent settings. The Apex One server performs these tasks.
The Security Agent cannot send logs to reference servers or use them as update sources