Thanks,
Good information. Z Edward Ziots Network Engineer Lifespan Organization MCSE,MCSA,MCP+I, ME, CCA, Security +, Network + [email protected] Phone:401-639-3505 ________________________________ From: Webb, Brian (Corp) [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, March 06, 2009 4:12 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Using System Center for Management of about 700 Windows File Servers Your thoughts? We have been using SCOM 2007 for over a year now and have mixed results. Some things it does really well, other stuff is really frustrating. We have a separate team that manages it (along with other management tools). We feed data from SCOM into NetCool to allow aggregation across platforms and other tools. I'm not on the team that manages SCOM, but here is some of what I see as a user of SCOM and hear from the guys who manage it. The good: Collects tons of information from all servers It automatically sets up new machines once the agent is installed. The bad: A fire hose of information... The management packs are horribly inconsistent - even between ones from MS The interface is incredibly slow even on high-end hardware Reporting is horrible Customized monitoring for special case servers is a pain We can't make monitoring a server dependent on the gateway to that server being available Separating out alerts of one type to go to one pager while different types go to another pager is difficult We have had MS in for ton of consulting to try and find solutions to the problems and they are promising that R2 will fix a lot. We even had lead developers in to hear some of our complaints. It feels very much like a version 1.0 product. -Brian ________________________________ From: Brian Desmond [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, March 06, 2009 2:47 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 [email protected] c - 312.731.3132 From: Ziots, Edward [mailto:[email protected]] 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 + [email protected] Phone:401-639-3505 ________________________________ From: Brian Desmond [mailto:[email protected]] 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 [email protected] 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:[email protected]] 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 + [email protected] Phone:401-639-3505 ________________________________ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
