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by Dana Daugherty
This a document that I compiled for other IT
staff within my organization. The idea was to give them a broad but
thorough, high-level overview of the functionality of SMS in
layman’s terms. I’m sure some of you have the same need.
This a document that I compiled for other IT staff within my organization. The idea was to give them a broad but thorough, high-level overview of the functionality of SMS in layman’s terms. I’m sure some of you have the same need.
Site
Settings
Client Agent
Configuration- from MMC Console
·
Agents include:
Advertised Programs, Remote Tools, Software Metering, Hardware
Inventory, Software Inventory, Event to Trap Translator. Clients can
include any number of agents you chose.
Client
installation methods – installs client, which includes all
agents
·
Logon – SMS
inserts logon scripts on each Domain Controller
·
Remote client
installation
Component
Configuration
·
Used to specify
data processing and storage, software distribution, software
metering, status reporting and inter-site communications
properties
Connection
Accounts
·
SMS service, SQL
Server, and SMS client network connection accounts are mandatory and
are specified and/or created during SMS Setup.
DB
Maintenance
·
Can be used to
schedule common database maintenance tasks or run SQL commands.
Client
Discovery Methods
·
Logon – Logon
Discovery finds Windows network resources whose users log on to
domains in an SMS site. Each time a user logs on to a Windows
network resource, the resource’s information is updated in SMS Site
Database. All domain controllers become SMS logon points.
·
NT User Account
– Windows NT User Account Discovery finds Windows NT domain user
accounts.
·
NT User Group –
Windows NT User Group Discovery finds Windows NT domain user groups.
·
Network- looks
at DHCP servers for network hardware that contains a NIC.
Senders
·
An SMS thread
component that uses an existing connectivity system to communicate
with other sites. A sender manages the connection, ensures the
integrity of transferred data, recovers from errors, and closes
connections when they are no longer needed.
·
Types-
Standard (LAN and WAN
connectivity), Ras (Asynchronous, Synchronous, ISDN, X.25).
Site
Systems
·
Site systems are
Windows NT Server computers, Windows NT shares that provide Systems
Management Server (SMS) functionality.
Status Filter
Rules
·
Status filter
rules provide a way to automatically process status messages when
they arrive at a site.
Status
Summarizers
·
They are dynamic
real-time views of the state of SMS, and they change constantly
based on the flow of status messages in a site.
Collections-
Collections
gather resources into logical, manageable groups that can be defined
by using the Collection Wizard, which allows you to use 11 resource
attributes. A predefined query can be used as well. SMS comes with
12 canned collections.
Packages– Packages are
the files and instructions that Systems Management Server (SMS) uses
to distribute software to clients. Packages can be created for
commercial software, in-house software, configuration scripts, and
data files. Packages can be created from imported definition files
from software packages, SMS’s canned definition files or by creating
our own.
Advertisements– Advertisements
are evaluated by SMS to determine which clients receive a specific
program that runs on their computers. An Advertisement
specifies:
·
The program to
be run.
·
The collection
to receive the program.
·
The
schedule.
·
If the program
is assigned or if it can be run independently.
Product
Compliance- SMS product
compliance feature can help us identify software products compliance
issues such as Y2K, Euro etc. This feature use can use the
compliance database coupled with software inventory to determine
what software needs our attention. Software distribution can then be
used to deliver patches to fix the problem.
Queries– We can create
our own or use one of the 27 canned ones. We can also modify the
canned ones.
System Status-
The SMS status
system monitors and reports on the overall health of the sites in
the SMS hierarchy.
·
Includes :
Advertisement Status, Packages Status, Site Status and Status
Message Queries
Security Rights-
allows SMS admin
the flexibility to assign variable rights to support staff. The MMC
can then be distributed but must be installed on an NT
workstation.
Tools–
·
Reports- uses
crystal info and has several canned report and allows you to create
your own.
·
Network Monitor-
With Network Monitor, we can identify network traffic patterns and
network problems. For example, you can locate client-to-server
connection problems, find a computer that makes a disproportionate
number of work requests, and identify unauthorized users on your
network. Expert is a related post-capture analytical tool that
parses a capture file and identifies problem areas on the network.
·
SMS Service
Manager- operates much like NT Service Manager, but is used to start
and stop SMS components
·
Software
Metering- can help us to ensure that your company uses software
efficiently and legally. With software metering, we can monitor and
control the use of applications on all computers. We can control the
number of concurrent software products running, and provide
automatic callbacks to notify users when a requested application is
available for use. You also can prevent the use of specific
applications on your network.
·
Healthmon- An
SMS tool that provides a central, graphical, real-time status view
of Windows NT and BackOffice servers.
