Explanation
Tom's changes will have been stored on the Management when he reconnects and he will not lose any of his work.
This is because SmartConsole has a feature called Concurrent Administration, which allows multiple administrators to work on the same Security Policy simultaneously, without blocking each other or creating conflicts. Concurrent Administration uses a locking mechanism to prevent multiple administrators from modifying the same rule or object at the same time. When an administrator clicks on a rule or an object, it becomes locked and a lock icon appears next to it. The lock icon shows the name of the administrator who is working on that rule or object, and prevents other administrators from editing it until it is unlocked12.
Concurrent Administration also has a feature called Session Persistence, which preserves the changes made by an administrator in case of a network failure or a SmartConsole crash. When an administrator reconnects to the Management Server after a network failure or a SmartConsole crash, they can resume their work from where they left off, without losing any changes. The changes are stored locally on the administrator's machine until they are published to the Management Server13.
Therefore, if Tom has connected to the R81 Management Server remotely using SmartConsole and is in the process of making some Rule Base changes, when he suddenly loses connectivity, his changes will not be lost.
They will be stored locally on his machine and he can resume his work when he reconnects to the Management Server.