Symantec Endpoint Protection 11 (short: SEP11) has a database in which it stocks everything from client properties, virus definitions and more. At the installation, you could either select to use an external data source, or its internal database format. When the database is in service for a while, it can grow very large, depending on the number of clients you've got. But it is possible to shrink (= compact) it, which, in certain cases, could save you several hundreds of MB.

Notice

The problem of a overly large database was addressed in Maintenance Release 2, where the compact operation is done automatically. If you're not running MR2, you will have to perform the steps below, but if you have just upgraded to MR2, it is possible the shrinking has not yet occured. In that case, you can shrink the database yourself as well.

SEPM comes with a tool to perform the compacting and shrinking, called dbunload. It is installed along with the console. To shrink the database, perform the steps below. Depending on your installation path (and whether you're running 32-bit or 64-bit Windows), the paths mentioned need to be changed accordingly. The steps below show the default paths.

1. Optionally: create a backup of C:\Program Files\Symantec\Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager\db\sem5.db, using Database Backup and Restore Wizard.
2. Stop the services:
   • Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager
   • Symantec Embedded Database
3. Open a command prompt and navigate to the folder where dbunload.exe is located.

cd \Program Files\Symantec\Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager\ASA\win32

4. Then run the command with these parameters. Don't forget to adjust the password of your database, which should be the same as the first password of the admin user, created during installation of SEPM. Note that the command is a one-liner...

dbunload -c "dbf=C:\Program Files\Symantec\Symantec Endpoint Protection
Manager\db\sem5.db;start=dbsrv9;uid=dba;pwd=password_set_during_install" -ar

5. Once the process has finished, restart the services:
   • Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager
   • Symantec Embedded Database