The BigFix Client, also known as the agent, is the component installed on every managed endpoint. Its primary responsibility is to continuously run an assessment cycle. During this cycle, it evaluates the Relevance language expressions contained within all subscribed content (such as Fixlets, Tasks, and Baselines) against the current state of the local computer. This constant, intelligent evaluation allows the client to determine applicability for patches, policies, or configurations in real-time and report its status back to the BigFix Server without needing constant server polling.

B. BigFix Root Server: The server acts as the central coordinator and database for the deployment. It gathers and processes reports from clients but does not perform the state assessment on the endpoints.

C. BigFix Relay: A relay is a hierarchical distribution and collection point. It caches content from the server to serve to clients and aggregates client reports, but it does not evaluate content relevance.

D. BigFix Console: The console is the user interface for administrators. It is used to create and deploy content and view the results of the assessments performed by the clients, not to perform the assessments itself.

1. HCLSoftware BigFix Platform 10.0 Documentation

"BigFix Overview": This section describes the core components. It states

"The BigFix client

which resides on every computer that you want to manage... continuously assesses the state of the endpoint against the applied policies

and it can report the results back to the server." This directly confirms the client's role in continuous assessment.

2. HCLSoftware BigFix Platform 10.0 Documentation

"Key Concepts > Relevance": This document explains the evaluation mechanism. It details that "The BigFix client evaluates Relevance expressions on the endpoint to determine whether the endpoint is relevant for a particular action." This specifies that the evaluation logic is executed by the client on the local machine.

3. HCLSoftware BigFix Platform 10.0 Documentation

"Architecture and Processes > BigFix Architecture": The architectural diagrams and descriptions in this section visually and textually place the function of evaluation and assessment squarely on the BigFix Client

while defining the Server

Relay

and Console in their respective roles of coordination

distribution

and management.