Designing a Situate Domain

Naming Your Domain

A domain identifies the instance of situate. Situate domains have nothing to do with DNS domains, Windows domains, Active Directory domains, or any other kind of domain. They reference an “instance of Situate”.

In a small company, a domain may just be the name of your company. In a larger company or enterprise, a name is chosen that is descriptive of a line of business, business unit or organizational unit within the company. It is also very customary to have both a production and development Situate domain.

Each domain will have its own security settings, user permissions, roles, etc. When different groups want separate security, you’ll want to create separate Situate domains.

It is possible for a Situate agent to be a member of more than one domain. The agent will interact with both servers as if two separate agents were installed, but only one is, in fact, installed.

Creating a Server Alias

To communicate with the server, the various parts of situate, such as the GUI, use an alias that is created by adding “sit-“ to the beginning of the domain name.

For example, if “acme-proc” is your domain, then “sit-acme-prod” will be the alias you need to create. This host alias should be created and pointed to the computer where the server will run prior to installation.

The License File

The server requires a license file. Regular agents do not. When running the server installer, you will be prompted with instructions for obtaining and installing a license.

Security

The situate installer typically does a good job discovering and setting up security by default. These defaults are often good enough for small or mid-sized Situate instances. But, larger domains that cover many different assets with different authentication mechanisms require a deeper understanding of security.

If you have a larger domain or are very interested in security, please read the next page. If you have a small domain or are just wanting to evaluate the product without having to know too much, skip it.