Thanks for the insight, we aren't doing SMS right now, and doubt we would be going forward with SMS as part of this, I mainly view SMS as the patching and application deployement piece of the puzzle and yes it can get configurations from the system, but the price for the amount of nodes I am dealing with 7K+ is going to be far too expensive for purchase atm.
If I could get SCOM/SCCM in house and tie this back into compliance and configuration management and standardization across the farm and workstations as an end-state and get them to buy-in on that long-term strategy then it might work. Again this is healthcare, and I am not optimistic that the $$ are going to be there even if the solution does work. Z Edward Ziots Network Engineer Lifespan Organization MCSE,MCSA,MCP+I, ME, CCA, Security +, Network + ezi...@lifespan.org Phone:401-639-3505 ________________________________ From: Brian Desmond [mailto:br...@briandesmond.com] Sent: Friday, March 06, 2009 3:47 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Using System Center for Management of about 700 Windows File Servers Your thoughts? That's SMS/SCCM + SCOM. Expect to need a good amount of practice/specialized training to manage either of them if you haven't before - they're both very complex applications. There are a limited number of people out there who really know either of them so it's a worthwhile set of skills to develop IMO. I have not seen many customers who do either of these apps remotely "right". Thanks, Brian Desmond br...@briandesmond.com c - 312.731.3132 From: Ziots, Edward [mailto:ezi...@lifespan.org] Sent: Friday, March 06, 2009 2:26 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Using System Center for Management of about 700 Windows File Servers Your thoughts? Three main problems, Configuration Management ( ability to set configuration settings, jobs, etc etc and let them apply to the entire farm from one central console across 5 datacenters) Systems Performance Monitoring ( Instead of me having 6-10 Perfmon mmc's open looking at systems, I set the performance monitor baselines I want to see on the servers and when they go outside the parameters, I am alerted via central console) Eventlog Management and Reporting. ( Need to be able to parse the eventlogs and achive and store them for compliance and security efforts across the farm) Compliance measuring would be a added benefit. HTH Z Edward Ziots Network Engineer Lifespan Organization MCSE,MCSA,MCP+I, ME, CCA, Security +, Network + ezi...@lifespan.org Phone:401-639-3505 ________________________________ From: Brian Desmond [mailto:br...@briandesmond.com] Sent: Friday, March 06, 2009 3:14 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Using System Center for Management of about 700 Windows File Servers Your thoughts? Well the question I'd ask you is what problem(s) are you trying to solve with this product? Thanks, Brian Desmond br...@briandesmond.com c - 312.731.3132 Active Directory, 4th Ed - http://www.briandesmond.com/ad4/ <http://www.briandesmond.com/ad4/> Microsoft MVP - https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Brian <https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Brian> From: Ziots, Edward [mailto:ezi...@lifespan.org] Sent: Friday, March 06, 2009 1:52 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Using System Center for Management of about 700 Windows File Servers Your thoughts? Importance: High We are having Microsoft coming in to talk with us about Systems Center for Management of our ever-growing server farm, for those using it, please feel free to give me your pro's con's and tales from the trenches on what this platform said it will do, and what it really does when the rubber hits the road. My Mix of servers are ½ physical ½ virtual, SQL (2000/2005), IIS (5&6), File and Print (2000-2008), DC's (2003), Application servers ( 3rd party) (2000/2003) TVK, I especially want to hear your thoughts on this subject, since this is your MVP realm and you tend to know the most about the features and functionality. TIA in advance, Z Edward Ziots Network Engineer Lifespan Organization MCSE,MCSA,MCP+I, ME, CCA, Security +, Network + ezi...@lifespan.org Phone:401-639-3505 ________________________________ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
