ePolicy Orchestrator 5.0 and McAfee Agent 4.8 Beta Refresh

Update: ePO 5.0 Beta Refresh Release now Available with New Features

McAfee's Engineering Group would like to again extend an invitation to you and your company to participate in the ePolicy Orchestrator® version 5.0 (ePO 5.0) and McAfee Agent® version 4.8 (MA 4.8) public beta program.

McAfee just refreshed the beta release, which includes new features and functionality not available at the time of the initial beta release.

EPO 5.0:

New Features for ePO 5.0 Beta Refresh

• Upgrade support — The Beta Refresh version of the ePolicy Orchestrator software supports upgrades from ePolicy Orchestrator versions 4.5.6 and 4.6.4 and later.
• Upgrade Compatibility Utility — Use the Upgrade Compatibility Utility to migrate your server configuration from previous ePolicy Orchestrator versions on unsupported 32-bit server operating systems to supported 64-bit operating systems. At the same time, identify and prevent incompatible product extensions from running in your ePolicy Orchestrator 5.0 environment.
• Product compatibility checking — Determine which installed ePolicy Orchestrator extensions work with the latest version of your ePolicy Orchestrator software. See below for details.
• McAfee Product Improvement Program — Help improve McAfee products by periodically collecting data on ePolicy Orchestrator managed systems.
• Policy Comparison — Compare two existing policies for differences.
• Client task comparison — Compare two existing client tasks for differences.
• Additional platform support — Install ePolicy Orchestrator on Windows Server 2008 SP 2 or later.
• German and Japanese translations — German and Japanese versions of the user interface are available.
• Additional Product Support — Additional zip files containing supported McAfee product extensions can be found on the Available Downloads tab of this page. Please note that not all of the extensions are supported for use while testing upgrade scenarios.

Previously Released ePO 5.0 Features

• Disaster recovery — Use snapshots to back up and restore your McAfee ePO server configuration and policy information from a recovery database.
• Improved navigation — The improved menu helps you easily access the features you use most often.
• Simplified product deployment — Plan, run, and monitor product deployments with automatically generated charts from a single, dedicated location in the user interface.
• McAfee Agent URL deployment — Direct endpoints to a URL to download preconfigured McAfee® Agent installation packages.
• Improved performance — Native 64-bit support increases the amount server memory available, supports more sessions, and improves performance in large-scale environments.
• Improved Communication — Communication between the McAfee Agent and the McAfee ePO server is more efficient.
• Enhanced graphics — Improved monitor and chart graphics and animations help you identify critical data. Pages in the user interface load faster.
• Additional browser support — The user interface fully supports HTML5 browsers, including Internet Explorer 8 and later, Mozilla Firefox 10 and later, Google Chrome 17 and later, and Safari 6 and later (OS X only).
  

MA 4.8:

New Features for MA 4.8 Beta Refresh

• McAfee Product Improvement Program — Help improve McAfee products by periodically collecting data on ePolicy Orchestrator managed systems. See below for details.
• ePO 4.5/4.6 Support — The MA 4.8 product package can be checked into and deployed from ePO 4.5 and ePO 4.6.x servers, but must be managed by the existing MA 4.6 extension. An MA 4.8 extension for these ePO server versions will be included in the RTW release. The MA 4.8 extension for ePO 5.0 is installed automatically during an ePO 5.0 install/upgrade process.

Previously Released MA 4.8 Features

• URL Based Deployment — Additional method for deploying agents eases remote deployments.
• McAfee Smart Install — Small ePO and network aware install manages the Agent installation and configuration.
• Hierarchical SuperAgents — SuperAgents can now update from known repositories, including other SuperAgents!
• Agent Relay — Based on McAfee Internet Independent Update technology, Agent Relays enable systems with limited network access to share a connection to ePO.
• Enhanced Virtualization Support — New installation options and property settings enable better management of virtual environments.
   

We would like you to:

• Download and install the Beta Refresh releases into a non-production (test) environment.  Ideally, this environment would closely resemble your actual production environment.  (Note:  There may be additional beta releases, depending on beta feedback and engineering updates.)
• Conduct tests that exercise the new and existing features in your environment, complete surveys, and actively report feedback via the Enterprise Beta Programs Community.

McAfee Product Improvement Program:

The Beta Refresh releases of ePO 5.0 and MA 4.8 include software for the McAfee Product Improvement Program. This package collects data proactively and periodically from the client systems managed by the McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator server.

McAfee Product Improvement Program collects the following types of data:

• System environment (software and hardware details).
• Effectiveness of installed McAfee product features.
• McAfee product errors and related Windows events.

To learn more about McAfee Product Improvement Program, please visit

http://www.mcafee.com/product-improvement-program

No Personal Identifiable Information (PII) is collected from the client systems. The data collected by McAfee Product Improvement Program is used only to analyze product usage and unintended behavior in the client environment.

You will have the option to opt out of the Product Improvement Program, but we would like to ask that you turn it on for Beta testing.