| Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003 is the fifth revision of Microsoft’s product. Since it first appeared, its function and form have undergone vast changes. The 1.2 version made a big impact in the industry. It became a somewhat usable and stable, though temperamental, product. Some enterprises that invested their time and effort in this product had great successes; others were not as fortunate.
SMS’s evolution to the 2.0 version marked a change in its interface, arguably a less desirable one, as the drag-and-drop functionality was removed from the product. Around the release of Service Pack (SP) 5 for SMS 2.0, it seemed that Microsoft was revising its strategy around this product, and about to launch and heavily promote SMS in the mainstream marketplace. This approach centered on releasing a stable product and increasing its feature set by offering Feature Packs as they became available.
Feature Packs are free SMS add-ins from Microsoft that provide vast feature enhancements and completely new product feature sets. For example, after installing the SMS 2003 Inventory Tool for Microsoft Updates, your desktop management world will be forever changed. Imagine the ability to remotely scan for Windows-based vulnerabilities and report them to a central database. But that’s not all. You can perform query operations against them and group desktop resources based on common patch status qualities. And it doesn’t end there. You’re able to download the patches from Microsoft through a GUI and remotely deploy them against those desktops identified earlier. That’s not bad for a free add-in.
Where does SMS stand now? In this chapter, I’ll start by answering that question. Then I’ll describe the basic components of an SMS implementation. Finally, I’ll suggest project planning approaches for a successful SMS implementation. |