The SMS Web Reporting Tool
The SMS Web Reporting tool has been available for more than a year and comes in both feature packs. You can install the tool from the primary SMS servers or other SMS support servers such as a Microsoft IIS server. Incidentally, if you have a Microsoft Premier Online Support account, you might have received the feature packs while they were in beta. If so, you might need to back up the SMS SQL Server database before installing the released versions of the SMS Web Reporting tools.
As Figure 1 shows, the SMS Web Reporting server for site AA1 is simply a Web server running Internet Information Services (IIS) 5.0; the latest security patches have been applied, and the server is running an earlier installation of the SMS Web Reporting tool that needs to be updated. Let's run through the process of using the new SMS Web Reporting installation wizard to update this site and verify the installation.
First, install the SMS Additional Web Reports from the SMS SUS Feature Pack (the Administration Feature Pack doesn't contain the Additional Web Reports). After you update the site, you'll be able to edit the SMS site files to create custom Web reports and to report detailed SMS client information by using the new Web Reports. When you edit the sms_def.mof file, remember that this process adds new information to the Microsoft SQL Server database that you can query through the SMS Administration Console or the SMS Web Reporting tool.
In my example, the SMS Web Reporting tool is installed from the Win2K SMS Web server, DENWEB01. The SMS SUS Feature Pack is expanded on the local hard disk, so I double-clicked the smswebreporting_enu.exe file, then followed the installation wizard prompts to enter the name of the Win2K server on which the SMS database is maintained and the SMS database name.
Depending on the SMS architecture hardware, your SQL Server database might be on the same server as the SMS primary site. However, in some larger enterprises, the SQL Server database might be on a separate cluster server, with the hardware and SQL Server program managed by a database administrators group. When we installed the SMS configuration that Figure 1 shows, we chose a custom installation, installed additional SMS components, and configured the database on the primary site DENSMS01 with the name SMS_AA1. This process created a secure method to read the SMS data by creating a new account, SMS_Web_Read, and provided read-only access to the new account. The SMS reporting process uses this account to provide access from the IIS server to the SQL Server database.
In addition to this account, the SMS Web Reporting tool installs SQL Views that the SMS IIS Web-reporting server uses. The system creates the SQL Views from default SMS SQL Server database tables. These default views provide examples of how to customize Web reports to provide added value specific to your company's needs.
Increased Hardware and Software Inventory
Now let's look at how you can extend SMS 2.0's functionality by reading the SMS client registry information. You can increase the functionality of SMS's hardware and software inventory by editing some of your primary site files. Let's consider two examples of reading registry keys and reporting that information to the SMS site database: the Add/Remove Programs information and Custom Registry Key Software Update information.
Windows provides a Control Panel Add/Remove Programs applet that corresponds directly with a registry key that reports on information that's present during the installation of a software program, security patch, service pack, or any off-the-shelf Windows program. Inhouse programs written specifically for Windows should follow the same rules of writing to the registry during the program's installation steps. Updating the registry with inhouse .exe files lets SMS report the installation on a client-by-client basis.
Before you start the process to extend the SMS default inventory process, it might be helpful to consider some background information about hardware inventories. SMS clients report data to their respective site servers. In turn, the site servers forward that information to the primary site that contains the SQL Server database. The SMS site settings for each site in the SMS hierarchy are managed in the SQL Server database with all the SMS client data or client objects. All SMS client objects in the SQL Server database are recorded into the database as part of the SMS hardware inventory process. The collected data is referred to as managed objects or manageable objects. (You can review the objects using simple SQL queries through the SMS Administration Console or create new SQL Views similar to those that the SMS Web Reporting tool uses.) You can use SMS to manage approximately 600 hardware objects; only about 200 objects are configured and inventoried by default. If the other 400 objects that aren't enabled can't inventory the specific information you need, you'll need to extend the reach of SMS on your client systems. Let's see how to increase the SMS hardware and software from client systems.
Adding objects to the default Managed Object Format (MOF) can extend the SMS hardware inventory. When you install SMS on the workstation or server, the sms_def.mof file is copied from the SMS site server in the \\siteserver\siteshare\sms\inboxes\cliefiles.src\hinv directory to the client system. Microsoft provides a separate program called the MOF Manager program, mofman.exe, to edit the sms_def.mof file. (This file is on the SMS 2.0 CD-ROM in the \support\reskit\bin\x86 directory.) However, experienced SMS engineers might want to use Notepad to edit the MOF file. A good practice is to make a backup of the sms_def.mof file during testing and use GUI 2.0.21 (which you'll find on the SMS 2.0 CD-ROM) to check for syntax errors during compilation.
Listing 1 shows the changes needed to report the Add/Remove Programs installed on the SMS client system and to report this information to the SMS site server database. Simply copy the listing into your test SMS site MOF file. This addition is then updated to the SMS Client, and each client reports the Add/Remove Programs registry information to the SMS site server. You can add this script to the sms_def.mof file for testing. (The script includes spaces for clarity; they aren't necessary for compilation.)
Prev. page
1
2
[3]
4
next page 
