Why would I or my company want to use SCCM?

 Aug 26, 2014

Surely there are enough third party vendors supplying creditable software for updating and monitoring the infrastructure, enough companies willing to fork out their hard earned money on systems that promises the world and delivers heaven? Well, no, there’s not. What you need is a solution that can use client management tools to automate system administration and support functions that would otherwise be handled manually. They are configuration management tools that can image client systems, track inventory, deploy configuration changes (such as software or patches), enforce configuration standards and assist with troubleshooting. Windows PCs are the principal objective of management, but organisations are considering extending these products to manage Macs, mobile devices and servers as well. Mobile device management (MDM) is still a fairly separate market, but organisations are progressively looking to use a single vendor and management platform to support their PCs, Macs and mobile devices. The criteria for a well-executed Client management tool could be summarised as the following: 1. Products must include the following functions for Windows PC systems:
  • OS deployment
  • Inventory
  • Software distribution
  • Patch management
2. Other functionality often included in client management tools includes:
  • Software usage monitoring
  • Remote control
  • Security configuration management
  • Power management
  • Application virtualisation or integration with third-party application virtualisation products
  • Software packaging
  • Scripting
Welcome to the world of SCCM (System Center Configuration Manager). System Center enables the Microsoft Cloud OS by delivering unified management across on-premises, service provider, and Microsoft Azure environments. The capability of SCCM reaches a wide scope of possibilities: Infrastructure provisioning System Center helps you to manage virtual and cloud environments with complete support for Windows Server capabilities, as well as industry-leading Hyper-V scale and performance, plus support for VMware vSphere and Citrix XenServer. It also supplies robust support for Linux-based environments, with full support for Dynamic Memory. System Center allows VM connectivity to fibre channel-based SAN so you can virtualise the most demanding workloads and connect them to your highest-tier storage platforms. To bring down storage costs for your business-critical workloads, SCCM enables bare metal provisioning and cluster creation of scale-out file server clusters. System Center enables virtual networking for multitenant environments along with automated provisioning of edge gateways that bridge physical and virtual networks. System Center delivers reliable and cost-effective automation to help you deliver operational efficiency. You can also migrate on-premises workloads to Microsoft Azure through the familiar System Center experience. The Configuration Manager component helps you automate physical server deployments, software inventory, and in-guest updates. Automation and self-service Use service templates for faster and repeatable application and workload provisioning—for example, to define and deploy a SharePoint farm for use by application owners. With the Microsoft Azure Pack, you can deploy scalable, multi-VM infrastructure services such as SQL clusters for use by application owners. Work with application owners to define the policies that govern the underlying infrastructure services, empowering them while retaining control. To ensure hybrid IT consistency between on-premises and Microsoft Azure environments, System Center provides unified views (through the App Controller component) and supports common deployment objects such as VHDs for Windows Server and Linux. Finally, System Center enables dynamic capacity expansion to support application needs through robust automation workflows (based on PowerShell and the Orchestrator component) and Integration Packs (including Integration Packs for Microsoft Azure and SharePoint). Application performance monitoring System Center assures LOB application SLAs by providing deep application insight for .NET and Java applications, including line-of-code level traceability to pinpoint and resolve issues that impact application health. Through integration with System Center Alliance partner BlueStripe, System Center can enable transaction monitoring, and attain a rapid application lifecycle by delivering dev-ops capabilities that span people, process, and systems. Deep Visual Studio-System Center integration makes it possible for developers to work productively with their operations counterparts in a cloud-optimised release pace. System Center Global Service Monitor gives you outside-in monitoring for web applications through Microsoft Azure-based global points of presence for a 360-degree view of application health. IT service management System Center offers easy publishing and consumption of IT services by enabling self-service requests for private cloud capacity through a Service Catalog and Cloud Service Process Pack. You get deep integration of people, process and knowledge with a CMDB as well as pre-defined industry-standard workflows for core datacenter processes. You can even measure and increase efficiencies of your operation through granular resource metering for chargeback combined with a data warehouse for SLA tracking and reporting. That’s just to mention the tip of the iceberg in functionality of SCCM 2012 R2! If you would like to get a closer look at the product itself, Microsoft does provide an evaluation of the product for free.

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About the Author:

Barend Koekemoer  

Barend is one of New Horizon's highly experience IT Technical trainers with over 15 years of practical IT experience as well as experience in administrating, planning and executing projects and automation systems. He began his career in IT working for a South African government organisation and has since become a Microsoft Certified Trainer, Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate, Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist and a Microsoft Certified IT Professional.

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