agentless

Agentless refers to software or systems that perform management, monitoring, or data collection on remote devices without installing a dedicated agent on those devices. In agent-based approaches, an agent program runs on the target endpoints, gathering data and enacting changes and sending it to a central server. In agentless approaches, management tasks are carried out by leveraging existing network protocols and remote access mechanisms such as SSH, WinRM, WMI, SNMP, or cloud provider APIs.

Common use cases include IT monitoring, configuration management, backup, vulnerability scanning, and inventory collection. Agentless methods are often preferred when minimal footprint, rapid deployment, or broad initial coverage is desired, since there is no need to install or maintain software on every endpoint.

Advantages of agentless systems include lower deployment effort, reduced maintenance, and avoidance of agent drift or compatibility issues. They can offer easier scalability in large environments and may present a smaller attack surface by avoiding persistent agents. However, there are trade-offs: data precision and depth can be limited compared with agent-based solutions, and operations may depend more on network reliability and privileged credentials. Security considerations include securing remote access channels and managing credentials, as well as ensuring appropriate access controls for what can be queried or changed.

In practice, many IT environments use a mix of agentless discovery and monitoring for broad visibility, supplemented by agent-based components for deeper instrumentation or configuration tasks. See also agent-based, remote management, SSH, WinRM, SNMP.