Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 – Introduction (Part 2)

Here we are for Part 2 of the SCCM 2007 Series of Blogs I’m writing to help me along the track of revising and (hopefully) passing the exam at the end of it (the 70-401).

I guess the fact I never got round to writing a “part 2” for SCOM 2007, already bodes well for the SCCM 2007 Series!

Before we start installing and playing, I thought I’d take some time out to just try and cover off some more of the basics.

For example what components actually make SCCM?

Well if we look at the MAIN components:

• The SCCM Site – The SCCM Site as a whole. E.G an AD Site or IP Subnet.
• The Site Server – Essential to ANY SCCM Site. You need at least ONE Site Server. The
• The Site System – If you find your SCCM Site Server Is struggling with the load from servicing all your end points, you can deploy site system servers to help spread the load
• Site Hierarchy – Central Site, Primary site and Secondary sites.
• The Client – One of the most important parts! The client (SCCM agent) must be installed on the end point.
• The Management Console – Where we will spend most of our time.

I’ve only covered them off briefly, as at the moment that’s all I know! As I progress I’ll be able to expand further in future blogs.

Let’s also look at some of the Site System Roles (As mentioned above).

• Site Server – The Key/Main distribution point. Imagine this as a file share for example where clients go to, in order to get their file (source code)
• Management Point – Used for the communicating of policy’s and system inventory’s
• Reporting Point – As you may have guess…Used for reporting and producing web based queries/outputs
• Site Locator Point – Useful if you are unable to extend your AD Schema when installing SCCM. The Site locator point will help agents “find” the SCCM Server.
• Database Server – Again it’s in the name. Where all the information gets stored.

OPTIONAL system roles

• Device Management Point – Used for managing individual devices
• PXE Service Point – IF you have this in your environment then you can push out operating systems via SCCM using Win PE (Windows Pre-installation Environment)
• Software Update Point – Integration with WSUS (Windows System Update Services)
• System Health Validator (SHV) – Mainly used to integrate with NAP (Network Access Protection) for validating the health of agents before being “allowed” on to the production network.
• State Migration – Used during Operating System deployments

Just to expand on something I touched on earlier. Site Hierarchy. If we look at the exam below, you can see we have multiple sites.

At the very top you can see our central SCCM Server (which is either the database server or has a database server “attached” to it) A couple of Primary sites (again which have databases attached), and finally some secondary sites (which don’t have a database attached to them).

The below diagram should give you a better understanding of HOW a SCCM Site Hierarchy could look, as well as hopefully below explaining the difference between each:

• Central Site – typically has no parent site, but has child sites and collects all of their client information to provide centralised management and reporting.
• Primary Sites – A primary site stores SCCM 2007 data for itself and all the sites beneath it in a SQL Server database.
• Secondary Site – A secondary site has no SCCM 2007 site database. It is attached to and reports to a primary site.

In the example below, In order for Secondary Site 2 to “retrieve” new information, the data would not flow from Central Site 1, but would flow UP from Primary Site 1, via Central Site 1. (as shown with the data flow arrow)

Finally I’m going to cover off some of the “new features” in SCCM 2007 (compared to previous versions).

• DCM (Desire Configuration Manager) – For example you can specify the “desired” level of config you wish to use (e.g a certain reg key MUST be a certain way).
• NAP (Network Access Protection) – Used to help keep those end points which are not fully up to date (either AV or OS patched) off the production network
• WOL (Wake On Lan) – Allows you to send “a magic packet” to the LAN port to “power on” the end point
• BDP (Branch Distribution Point) – If you have a very small remote office, with no server’s and a very “flaky” WAN link you can make one of the workstations a distribution point. This means the other end points talk directly to this machine instead of over the WAN and back to your main SCCM server.