What Is Systems Management Server 2.0?

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The computing industry has undergone many changes since the days of UNIVAC. In the early 1980s, the desktop computer as a viable business tool was relatively new. In fact, typical corporate discussions at the time centered around issues such as whether to purchase a desktop computer with a 10-MB disk drive at an additional cost of $1,700 because "users will just never need that much space."

Since that time, the desktop computer as a productivity tool has become a necessity in most organizations as well as in schools and at home. The need to provide processing power at the user's fingertips is a foregone conclusion. As a result, desktop computing has grown into a major industry, and consequently a potentially huge administration headache. Desktop computer users can be territorial about their systems and the applications they run. It's not unheard of to have an information systems (IS) group that supports a user running three different word processing programs in several different versions because that user is unwilling to risk converting documents to a single word processing version. While this is an unusual case (we hope), it does exemplify the fact that supporting multiple desktop computers installed with a variety of program applications can be a challenge for even the best-equipped and well-funded IS support groups.

In addition to application support, IS groups often provide hardware support for their organization's users. This too can be a daunting prospect when the install base of computers is in the thousands or tens of thousands, deployed within different departmental, geographic, or international locations. It is not always practical—or even possible—to physically access every computer in an organization.

Recently IS managers have acknowledged the need to provide standards for desktop computing and now have begun to look for and to implement some kind of centralized desktop management system. IS support groups need to be able to respond actively and proactively to their users' requests for assistance as quickly, effectively, and consistently as possible. IS support groups should be able to perform as much user desktop management as possible while sitting at their own desktop computers. The key to effective remote desktop management is to provide a reliable set of remote management tools that enable an IS support group to be as effective as if they had actually laid hands on the user's desktop.

Microsoft has long recognized this need and has responded by providing tools to assist IS groups in centralizing desktop management. These tools include the use of Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 system profiles and policies to provide standard desktop environment settings and registry values. Microsoft Zero Administration Kits for Windows NT Workstation 4.0 provide customizable policy templates to further "lock down" desktop settings, such as which programs appear in the Control Panel. Microsoft Windows 2000 and the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) services provide a robust schema for managing desktop configurations from a central location.

SMS 2.0 is a powerful Microsoft BackOffice tool that offers a rich set of desktop management features, providing IS managers with perhaps their most effective centralized management tool to date. With SMS 2.0, you will be able to remotely diagnose and troubleshoot desktop systems, install applications, and manage software.

With these general specifications in mind, let's take a closer look at the various features offered by SMS 2.0.



Microsoft Systems Management Server 2.0 Administrator's Companion
Microsoft Systems Management Server 2.0 Administrators Companion (IT-Administrators Companion)
ISBN: 0735608342
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 1999
Pages: 167

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