Microsoft System Center "whatever they come up with next".

[BoomAM]

Hi all,

Im trying to work out what each of the MS System Center products do as they all seem to overlap to some extent.

I know what SCCM does as i used to use it, its primarily client management.

Im looking for a SC product that will allow what SCCM does in regards to client auditing, whilst also allowing me to monitor/administer servers, including VMs, and virtual hosts. Based on what ive read, SC Essentials should do the job, but what are the other SCs for? As the product pages arnt entirely clear?

Thanks in advance all.

 

[BoomAM]

Assuming you aren't an incredibly large organization, System Center Essentials is actually a pretty decent all-in-one product.

The individual SC products are for greater scalability than SCE, most do have some amount of overlap, but SCE will do pretty much all of the individual functions on its own, albeit slightly scaled down.

To sum up then:
SCE - Bit of everything
SCCM - Mostly client side admin
SC DPM - Backups?
SC OM - Server monitoring?
SC SMS - ???
SC VMM - Virtual server monitoring?

 

[BoomAM]

SCCM is the replacement for SMS, which wasn't part of the 'systems center' line, last release was in 2003 (with service packs released there after).

Last was 2007, used it at my last job.

I think SCE plus also comes with DPM for backups, and depending on how many clients you'll be managing you might also need a full SQL install over Express.

Cant see nout that mentions it....but assuming it is there, i take it that its just a 'role'?
So DPM on its own VM, its Database on our DB server and the DPM 'role' on its own host too?

SCCM replaced SMS, so not sure what you mean by SC SMS, as far as I'm aware that product doesn't exist.

System Center Service Manager Server 2010

 

[BoomAM]

Well the ones we have available are:

System Center Configuration Manager Server 2007 R2
System Center Configuration Manager Server 2007 R3 with SP2
System Center Data Protection Manager Server 2007 (32 Bit)
System Center Data Protection Manager Server 2007 (64 Bit)
System Center Data Protection Manager Server ML Ent 2010
System Center Data Protection Manager Server ML Std 2010
System Center Essentials 2007 Service Pack 1
System Center Essentials 2007 w/SP1
System Center Essentials 2010
System Center Ops Mgr Server 2007 R2
System Center Ops Mgr Server 2007 Service Pack 1
System Center Ops Mgr Server 2007 w/SP1
System Center Service Manager Server 2010
System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008
System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2

I assume the SCE 2010 installer has the 'plus' bit as part of the installer?

 

[BoomAM]

Make sure you have PLENTY of storage for DPM.

Naturally, as its a backup product.

I'll look into wacking SCE in a VM and testing with it.


Thanks for the info guys.