Today, managers are asking systems administrators to provide greater security, superior client control, and enhanced Web reporting with fewer resources than ever before. By enhancing your Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) 2.0 infrastructure, you can extend those precious resources.
In mid-November 2002, Microsoft released the first two of several scheduled SMS 2.0 Feature Packs: the SMS Software Update Services (SUS) Feature Pack and the SMS Administration Feature Pack. Both feature packs contain SMS administration tools, but the Administration Feature Pack contains particularly beneficial administration tools that help you use SMS 2.0 in distributed, multi-site environments.
But before you dive into the Administration Feature Pack, you might want to take the time to revisit SMS's current feature set. To understand the benefits of the Administration Feature Pack's new Web reports, for example, you would do well to examine SMS's existing Web-reporting functionality. To get the most out of the other new features, you should know how to use Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) on the SMS client to edit default SMS site files, which will help you gather additional hardware and software information and will provide additional reporting functionality. (For information about WMI, see "Extend Sms_def.mod by Using WMI Registry Providers" at http://www.microsoft.com/smserver/techinfo/administration/20/using/extenddefmof.asp.) You also need to know how to read information from the SMS client's Add/Remove Programs feature so that you can easily use the Windows registry for granular reporting. In the Administration Feature Pack, Microsoft has added a wealth of information to the SMS database, providing more capabilities and greater detail for customized SMS reports.
Setting Up a Test Site
For the purposes of this article, I use an SMS 2.0 test infrastructure to add Web reporting, edit SMS files, and install and use the Administration Feature Pack. The techniques I use work in deployments ranging from small to large SMS enterprises. The SMS configuration that Figure 1 shows demonstrates how information flows through the enterprise and includes a new repository server that stores security patches. AA1, the primary SMS site, manages all SMS information—site configuration, package deployment, and client reporting. Clients in the secondary SMS sites BB1 and BB2 receive information from the client access points and software from the SMS distribution points.
This configuration provides additional security because the download server acts as the security-patch repository and is behind a corporate firewall. If this server is built with robust hardware, you could later add the SUS Feature Pack to this server to further update SMS clients with standard security patches. The download server could also publish SMS Web reports for partner companies behind the security of the firewall.
Most systems administrators use Windows XP Workstation or Windows 2000 Workstation to manage SMS sites. The SMS test site that I use for this article simulates a production environment. The standard corporate build uses SMS 2.0 Service Pack 4 (SP4), and each server and client should be up-to-date with the necessary security patches. SMS test sites help you understand how to use the new tools, evaluate and identify possible conflicts, and produce a plan to migrate the tools into production after you're comfortable with their functionality.
Downloading the Feature Packs
You can download the SMS 2.0 Feature Packs from the Microsoft Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/smserver. You can install some of the tools to run from the workstation that contains the SMS Administration Console. (After you finish installing and testing the Feature Packs on all SMS administration workstations, I recommend that you install the SMS Administration Console extension on all your servers to maintain consistent configurations.) The Administration Feature Pack includes four sets of tools: the Transfer Site Settings tool, the Elevated-Rights Deployment tool, the Manage Site Accounts tool, and the SMS Web Reporting tool.
The Transfer Site Settings Tool
The Transfer Site Settings tool is installed by default on the primary SMS site server. You can also use the administration workstation's SMS Console to manually install the tool. The Transfer Site Settings tool contains the replstcfg.exe command-line utility, which lets you schedule times to copy SMS site settings or package and collection configurations into an XML file. Regular use of this tool lets you save SMS Site settings for your revision history or as part of your disaster-recovery process. To use the tool's GUI interface, start the Transfer Site Settings Wizard, select the Transfer Site Settings option, and ignore the option to migrate package and collection settings. The settings migration process lets you granularly select the settings you want to transfer from one site to another. The migration process can involve extensive detail, which helps ensure site-to-site consistency.
The Transfer Site Settings Wizard also lets you transfer all the collection and package settings or individual collection and package settings from one site to another. For example, an SMS administrator can create an SMS collection for the client group site BB1, then advertise (i.e., install the same programs on every client in that SMS collection) a necessary SMS package to this collection. He or she can then use the Transfer Site Settings Wizard to migrate the collection and package criteria to the primary site BB2. This process lets the SMS administrator determine which information (e.g., Preferred Sender, Refresh Schedule, Sending Priority, Disconnect Users) he or she wants to transfer from one secondary site to another secondary site. The site configurations will then be identical.
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