I currently have a SMB customer who wants to improve it’s IT management and monitoring processes without investing a lot of money.
There are a few things companies can do without investing any money. Like installing a Windows Server Update Service for patch management, SharePoint Services for document and workflow management, a Distributed File System for easy file management, etc.
But I haven’t found any lowcost solution for a reliable server and network monitoring that enables administrators to proactively respond to system events and errors. Most solutions like Nagios only monitor SNMP traps, which might tell you that your server is absolute fine and running… while an event monitor would show the administrators that the DNS service is actually offline due to a database error.
On an Enterprise level there are several systems to choose from. Like Tivoli, OpenView and Microsoft System Center Operations Manager they are all very complex and very expensive.
Together with the current System Center Operations Manager 2007 Microsoft introduced the System Center Essentials 2007 version targeted at the midrange market (50-500 employees). Essentials includes key features from the Operations Manager as well as Windows Update Services 3.0 and SQL Server 2005 Express Edition. While WSUS is fully integrated into the package, SQL server is an optional feature, since it’s also possible to use any existing SQL Server 2005 instance as long as it has Reporting Services installed.
Installation is very easy, containing only of a single installation wizard which will guide you to the most important settings, like account name and password for the services and agents, and won’t bother with any unimportant details.
After about one hour you can open the System Center Essentials console, which will present you a brief overview of your environment with the most important information and open tasks. The first two tasks for the administrators will be the configuration of the update services which works the same as in the standalone version of WSUS 3.0 and the creation of a domain policy for your clients and servers to utilize the Windows Update Service, as well as a another wizard based task to discover the potential clients on your network to install the Management Agents on.
The management agents will collect all current information on the managed systems, like installed hardware and software, operating system version, installed patches and updates, existing users profiles, system status, hard drive status, event logs, etc.
Like in the Operations Manager 2007 the Essentials version provides a basic list on Microsoft Management Packs which can be extended by installing additional Management Packs. System Center 2007 compatible management packs include a flag for the Essentials version that reduces the amount of data send to the database to a needed minimum. This will keep the database size down as well as prevent administrators from being overwhelmed by the sheer mass of available information.
Additional to monitoring your client/server computers and deploying operating system and application patches System Center Essentials also enables you to distribute simple software packages. The deployment packages can be created from EXE or MSI files. The later also automatically creates an uninstall option for the package.
The creation process is guides by an easy to understand wizard which again focuses only on the most important features of software packaging, like including additional files and providing command line options. In case of MSI files it also enables you to modify some of the MSI configuration settings.
All software packages are listed in the Software tab and can be categorized and applied for installation on specific computer groups taken from the WSUS component.
Microsoft System Center Essentials 2007 server licenses are available with or without a SQL Server 2005 license, in case you already have one or want to use the Express Edition. furthermore you will need a Client or Server Management License for each Windows based system you want to install a Management Agent on. None Windows based systems can be managed and monitored via SNMP and don’t require additional licenses.
Since this Version of System Center is targeted at the midrange market the number of manageable Windows systems is limited to 30 servers and 500 clients and the managed environment will only host one Management Server. There is also an option for ISPs who want to manage multiple SMB customers. In this case all of the managed SCE can be connected to a full version of System Center Operations Manager 2007 for central management.