You are being too kind J
That said, once up, the SCCM infrastructure is pretty solid. The continual struggle we have is with client health. -Malcolm From: Michael B. Smith [mailto:mich...@smithcons.com] Sent: Friday, February 04, 2011 14:40 To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Patch management, revisited Like I said - it can be a little finicky to install. J Regards, Michael B. Smith Consultant and Exchange MVP http://TheEssentialExchange.com From: David Lum [mailto:david....@nwea.org] Sent: Friday, February 04, 2011 3:32 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Patch management, revisited You teach SCCM classes? Good to know, because I can't even get it to install - it dies at "Setup failed to install SMS provider:" error which IIRC means I need to do some setspn thing. Dave From: Michael B. Smith [mailto:mich...@smithcons.com] Sent: Friday, February 04, 2011 10:50 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Patch management, revisited If you don't do third party patches, SCCM is _almost_ exactly like WSUS. It is based on the WSUS engine as a matter of fact, and you have to install WSUS on the Software Update Point. J Doing the SCCM installation can be a little finicky; but once you set it up - it just RUNS. The challenge with SCCM in my eyes is that it can do SO MUCH, that unless you break it up into pieces (which is what I do when I teach classes on it), it can seem utterly overwhelming. Regards, Michael B. Smith Consultant and Exchange MVP http://TheEssentialExchange.com From: Jonathan [mailto:ncm...@gmail.com] Sent: Friday, February 04, 2011 1:43 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Patch management, revisited Ok, guys & gals, I've sifted through the threads for the past year searching on patch management and SCCM, and not found exactly what I'm looking for... In my new gig, the team gets to choose what we will use to handle patches and updates, as there is nothing set in stone right now. Two options have been mentioned by the team: SCCM and Big Fix. I don't know anything about Big Fix, except hat they were just recently gobbled up by IBM and are now part of Tivoli. What I've heard about SCCM is that it is a bear to learn and manage. Right now we've got between 700 and 1,000 nodes (including servers, both virtual and physical), and potentially slated for continued growth. Some of the engineers have laptops that are NOT members of AD, and they run as local Admins. That is probably NOT going to change. Also, we may or may not be looking at needing to handle 3rd party updates as well. I've run WSUS, but only for a few hundred nodes, and really only for windows OS updates and nothing else. Finally, we need decent reporting tools that can provide us with compliance reports on where we stand with patch management. I've seen Shavlik, Kace/K-Box, WSUS, SCCM, & GFI LANGuard all mentioned here... 1. Am I missing anything any products that I should be looking into? 2. Are any of these apps not well suited for the numbers of nodes I'm talking about (either over or under-powered for 700-2000 nodes)? 3. What's going to be the easiest learning curve/least administrative overhead? Thanks, -- Jonathan, A+, MCSA, MCSE ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin
