These postings are provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confer no rights.

The following information is for example purposes only. Do not rely on this information for a production deployment. These are meant to show the areas you should test for when evaluating ConfigMgr client activity impact on your network before going into production. The results are specific to the below ConfigMgr configuration and will vary from environment to environment.

UPDATE (22/04/2013): The System Center 2012 Configuration Manager version of this post can be found here:  http://aka.ms/pwlunk

To perform this sort of testing you can use NetMon 3.3, and the Top Users Netmon Expert. Basically, the process is:

  1. Start Capture (easiest in Mixed Mode)
  2. Perform Activity
  3. Stop Capture
  4. Run the Top Users expert

For more information on Netmon traffic tracing see the following:

Activity

Type

Average Bytes

Attempts

Client to Server Bytes

Server to Client Bytes

Policy Polling Request

MP

3,499

5

2,933

566

Software Update Scan (Regular)

MP

6,881

1

3,056

3,825

Software Update Scan (Regular)

SUP

56,527

1

50,197

6,330

Software Update Scan (Fresh AU DB)

MP

22,408

1

16,088

6,320

Software Update Scan (Fresh AU DB)

SUP

5,539,666

1

574,877

4,964,789

Hardware Inventory (Delta)

MP

17,080

1

14,519

2,561

Hardware Inventory (Empty)

MP

7,023

1

6,350

673

Software Inventory (Empty)

MP

6,072

1

5,399

673

Hardware Inventory (Full)

MP

72,678

1

69,467

3,211

Software Inventory (Full)

MP

291,314

1

288,792

2,522

Software Distribution Policy Poll (Advert Download)

MP

14,452

1

6,161

8,291

Notes on Test Configuration

  • Software Inventory Configuration:
    • Inventory Rules: *.exe
    • Items Inventoried: 2128 files
  • Hardware Inventory Configuration:
    • Standard SMS_DEF.MOF --> All AI configurations turned on
  • Software Updates Configuration:
    • Last Synched: 13/5/2009, 12:05 AM
    • Products:
      • Exchange Server 2007
      • Office 2007
      • SQL Server
      • SQL Server 2005
      • Forefront Threat Management Gateway, Definition Updates
      • Windows Server 2003
      • Windows XP
      • Windows 7 Client
      • Windows Server 2008
      • Windows Vista
      • CAPICOM
      • System Center Configuration Management 2007
      • Visual Studio 2005
      • Visual Studio 2008
    • Classifications
      • Critical Updates
      • Definition Updates
      • Security Updates
      • Service Packs
      • Update Rollups
      • Updates
  • Client Configuration:
    • Windows Server 2008, x64
    • SQL Server 2005
    • Programs Registered in Add/Remove Programs: 11
    • Updates Registered in Add/Remove Programs: 6

Note on SUP/WSUS traffic: Below is some additional (though less comprehensive) testing performed for this information.

  • Clients pulling metadata from a SUP with Windows Vista and Office 2007 installed have been observed requiring 21MB worth of metadata.
  • Client pulling metadata from a SUP with Windows Vista, Office 2007 and FCS installed have been observed requiring 34MB worth of metadata, with 4MB of upstream (client to server) traffic.

This post was contributed by Saud Al-Mishari, a Premier Field Engineer with Microsoft Premier Field Engineering, UK.