This *always* returns the full suite definition. For single use of suite definition in the python code there is no difference between sync_local()and get_server_defs().
*HOWEVER* if you wish to monitor the server in python then you *MUST* uses sync_local() as it will be considerably faster and will avoid overloading the server.
try:
ci = Client() # use default host(ECF_NODE) & port(ECF_PORT)
ci.get_server_defs() # retrieve definition from the server and store on 'ci'
print ci.get_defs() # print out definition stored in the client
except RuntimeError, e:
print str(e)