# Centralized remote management

A centralized point for managing all system components simplifies the system administration significantly.

Ease of administration is central to the SMC. The centralized management system:

- Provides administrators with visibility into the whole network.
- Simplifies and automates system maintenance tasks.
- Reduces the work required to configure the system.

You can also combine information from different sources without having to integrate the components with an external system.

The centralized management system is not an add-on; the system has been designed from the start to be centrally managed.

The main centralized management features in the Security Management Center include the following:

- Sharing configuration data in different configurations eliminates the need for duplicate work, which reduces the complexity of configurations and the amount of work required for changes. For example, an IP address used in the configurations of several different Security Engines has to be changed only one time in one place. It has to be changed only once because it is defined as a reusable element in the system.
- Remote upgrades can be downloaded and pushed automatically to several components. A single remote upgrade operation updates all necessary configuration details on the Security Engines, including operating system patches and updates.
- Fail-safe policy installation with automatic rollback to prevent policies that prevent management connections from being installed.
- The integrated backup feature allows saving all system configurations stored on the Management Server in one manually or automatically run backup.
- Central access point for administrators with centralized access control. The SMC Client requires no separate installation, because it can be made available centrally and be started through a web browser. Several administrators can be logged on at the same time and simultaneously change the system. Conflicting changes are automatically prevented. Administrator rights can be easily adjusted in a highly granular way.