Working with Virtual Groups

Virtual Groups let you manage groups of users and computers with SmartEndpoint. You can use Virtual Groups with Active Directory for added flexibility or as an alternative to Active Directory.

Objects can be members of more than one virtual group. Members of Active Directory OUs or groups can also be members of Virtual Groups.

The benefits of using Virtual Groups include:

• Using Active Directory but do not want to use it for Endpoint Security. For example:
  • Different administrators manage the Active Directory and Endpoint Security.
  • Your Endpoint Security requirements are more complex than the Active Directory groups. For example, you want different groups for laptop and desktop computers.
• Using a non-Active Directory LDAP tool.
• Working without LDAP.

Virtual Groups work much like Active Directory. You can:

• Create groups and then add objects to the groups automatically or manually.
• Assign policies to virtual groups or users.
• Put objects into more than one group.
• Select which policies have priority for endpoints that belong to more than one virtual group.

Important - You can use virtual groups to manage computers and servers in all environments. To manage users with a virtual group, you must do one of these steps: Use Full Disk Encryption and enable User Acquisition. Import objects into Endpoint Security with the Active Directory Scanner. Afterwards you can move them between virtual groups manually.