What if an appliance is not the policy source?

Help | V-Series Appliance | Version 8.0.x

A Websense V-Series appliance that is not serving as the policy source can be designated to run either User directory and filtering or Filtering only.

A User directory and filtering appliance is a lightweight version of the policy source machine. It runs:

Content Gateway module

Network Agent module (optional)

Having User Service and Policy Server on remote appliances means that you are able to obtain local network user names. Latency between User Service and Policy Server is eliminated, because both run on the same appliance.

Whenever you make a policy change, that change is immediately updated on the policy source appliance. The change is pushed out to User directory and filtering appliances within 30 seconds.

These appliances can continue handling traffic for as long as 14 days if their connection with the policy source machine is interrupted. So even if a network connection is poor or is lost, traffic management continues as expected.

A User directory and filtering appliance is configured to point to the Full policy source for updates.

A Filtering only appliance does not run Policy Server. It runs only:

Filtering Service

Control Service

Content Gateway module

Network Agent module (optional)

A Filtering only appliance is configured to point to a Policy Server. This works best when the appliance is close to the Policy server and on the same network.

These appliances require a continual connection to the centralized policy server, not only to stay current, but also to continue handling traffic. If the connection to the policy server becomes unavailable for any reason, traffic handling on a Filtering only appliance can continue for up to 3 hours.

If the Policy Server machine is on a remote network, with a WAN connection, it can be difficult to obtain user name/IP address maps for the local users.