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Designing the MID Server Architecture

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In this lesson, you will learn:

  • The questions a MID Server design answers
  • How zones and firewalls shape placement
  • SNWR’s MID Server design

🔁 Quick look back: Last time: The Discovery Design Document. You learned what goes into a Discovery design document.

1 The Problem: One MID Server Can’t Reach Every Zone

One MID Server in Mumbai would be simple. But:

  • London is across a slow WAN link.
  • AWS is a separate network.
  • Windows servers need a Windows MID Server.

🎯 The problem: One MID Server can’t reach every SNWR zone well.

👉 The fix: Design MID Servers per zone, with a backup for the busiest site.

Table of MID Servers, host OS and what they cover.
Figure 1. SNWR’s MID Server design (DD-D01).

2 Questions the design answers

  • Where should each MID Server sit?
  • How many do we need?
  • Windows or Linux host?
  • What happens if one fails?
  • Do we need one in the DMZ?

You’ll learn each topic in depth in the MID Servers chapter. Here you make the first decisions.

3 SNWR’s choices

  • Two Windows MID Servers clustered in Mumbai, for load and failover.
  • One in London, so scans stay local.
  • One Linux MID Server inside the AWS VPC.
  • No MID Server in the DMZ. One firewall rule lets Mumbai reach snwr-vpn-gw-01.
  • Separate MID Servers for snwrdev and snwrtest, so dev never scans production.

⭐ Remember: Each instance needs its own MID Servers. A MID Server talks to one instance.

4 Project Clear View: How We Implemented It

📍 Situation: SNWR has two sites, a DMZ, a restricted zone and AWS.

🧭 Decision: Place MID Servers by zone, cluster the busiest site, and keep instances separate.

🛠️ Steps we took:

  1. Drew each zone and the firewalls between them.
  2. Placed MID Servers where they reach their targets directly.
  3. Chose Windows hosts where Windows servers are scanned.
  4. Wrote DD-D01 with reasons and options.

✅ What we verified:

  • Ravi confirmed each MID Server can reach its zones.
  • Priya can provide the five hosts.

📁 Evidence: DD-D01 in the design document.

5 Quick recap

  • Place MID Servers close to what they scan.
  • Use Windows hosts to scan Windows servers.
  • Cluster the busiest site for failover.
  • Each instance needs its own MID Servers.

6 Check yourself

Think of your answer first. Then tap to check.

1 Why does London get its own MID Server? Show answer

Scanning across the slow WAN link would be slow and use shared bandwidth.

2 Why is there no MID Server in SNWR’s DMZ? Show answer

One firewall rule lets the Mumbai MID Servers reach snwr-vpn-gw-01, which is simpler and safer.

3 Can snwrdev use the production MID Servers? Show answer

No. Each instance has its own MID Servers.

Nice work! SNWR’s MID Servers are placed. 🎉
Next up: Choosing the Discovery Method for Each Zone

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