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I then ran the final task, Configure Microsoft Update Settings. The wizard synchronizes with the Microsoft Update site and asks if you want to download updates for OSs only or from a selection of other systems, including SQL Server and Microsoft Exchange Server. It also prompts you to select the languages for the updates you want to download and the categories of updates to automatically download. Finally, you can choose categories of updates to approve automatically as they are downloaded or you can choose to manually approve all updates before they are distributed to clients. I chose default values for the wizard with the exception of the last item, telling it that I would manually approve updates. After the wizard finishes, you select to synchronize immediately or at a later time. Your first synchronization can take some time and consume significant network bandwidth, but you do need to synchronize updates from Microsoft before the SCE Update Management feature will work properly.

The SCE Console Interface
The SCE console's interface, which Figure 1 shows, is fairly simple and intuitive as compared with other complex management products. It's laid out in a columnar format featuring various panes for displaying information or choosing actions to perform. Using the View menu, you can customize to some degree which items are displayed together to suit your environment. Figure 1 shows the console with the Computers pane activated and other available items such as Details, Actions, and Navigation enabled. You can resize the columns horizontally and change the height of an item or pane within a column to suit your preferences. To enter a specific area of SCE, you choose the appropriate selection from the Actions item in the lower left of the console or from the Go menu. The choices are Computers, Monitoring, Updates, Software, Reporting, Authoring, and Administration.

Computers. In the Computers pane, you can view inventory and launch a wide array of diagnostic and maintenance operations on a system. Figure 1 shows some of the possible actions you can perform on the selected managed system.

Monitoring Systems and Network Devices. Microsoft has included some great MOM and Ops Manager functionality to simplify monitoring systems and network devices. I don't have the space here to even scratch the surface of the monitoring functionality available for Windows OSs and Microsoft applications. Monitoring capabilities for most anything you would want to monitor on your desktops plus the majority of mainstream Microsoft server applications are included in SCE. You can author a monitor for a specific service and even develop detailed custom availability monitoring for a Web application. I also tested monitoring for a couple of SNMP-managed devices on my network. For generic network devices, SCE collects uptime information taken from ping contact, but you can import management packs to expose additional capabilities for supported hardware. I imported the Microsoft.SystemCenter .CiscoDevice.Library.mp file from the SCE 2007 installation media and was presented with additional monitoring information for the Cisco switch on my network.

Deploying Software Updates. One big benefit of SCE is that it has tools for deploying and reporting about software updates from Microsoft. The features in SCE's robust updates management technology make it very easy to synchronize, approve, deploy, and report on updates and patches.

You can also use SCE to deploy updates and patches to third-party software installed in your environment. The distribution of non-Microsoft updates is very similar to the process of distributing software.

Distributing Software. You can use SCE to deploy software from .exe files, .msi files, and exe-wrapped .msi files. Its capabilities for software deployment, however, are nowhere near as comprehensive as that of Systems Management Server (SMS) or other enterprise-class software distribution tools.

SCE has no repackaging or scripting capabilities to customize a deployment beyond what is provided by the software manufacturer. On the upside, SCE quickly and easily pushes out standard packages. However, during my testing, the SCE console crashed the first couple of times I tried to deploy Windows Defender. After I cleared the Include all files and sub-folders in this location checkbox, I was able to create and deploy packages without a problem.

Reporting. You'll find two user-configurable reports: Availability and Configuration Changes. I presume more reporting options will be available in the final release. I saw many context-specific reporting options that appeared throughout the interface, but they weren't enabled in the Beta 2 build that I tested.

Authoring and Administration. As I mentioned in the Monitoring section, the Authoring pane is where you can add monitoring for OLE DB data sources, TCP ports, a Web application, or a Windows service to achieve customized monitoring capabilities for an application or service in your environment.

The Administration pane lets you configure settings for how SCE will operate in your environment. These settings include device management, security, notifications, and general operational parameters.

First Impressions: Fix Bugs, Start a Revolution
Overall, I think SCE will catch on for many SMBs. It boasts a wealth of worthwhile features in a concise, easy-to-use interface. Unfortunately, the beta version I tested still had too many bugs to give it an official stamp of approval. For example, the console crashed on me numerous times during testing. I'm sure Microsoft will work diligently to make SCE stable and robust. Then, SCE will be poised to start a small revolution in IT systems management, at least for SMBs.

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