Hey everyone, we had a chance to speak with Brad and briefly talk about the MMS 2011 keynotes that he is involved in this year. There are 2 related keynotes this year. Day 1 is focused on the Cloud, and the Day 2 is focused on Consumerization of IT.
We hope you enjoy the video, and see you in Vegas.
Don’t forget MMS 2011 is a month earlier than last year! Also, the event will sell out. So, if you haven't visited the event site, or registered yet, check it out over here.
Jeff Wettlaufer Sr Technical Product Manager System Center, Management and Security Division
Hi everyone, recently we had the chance to talk with eWeek’s Cameron Sturdevant about ConfigMgr 2007 R3. Cameron has now published his review here.
Some key quotes from the article :
“The rejuvenating updates embodied in System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R3 make the R3 release a must for enterprise organizations that already use SCCM and are moving to Windows 7.”
“these features are welcome tuning features that should help IT managers stay more up-to-date while not drastically increasing the drain on system CPU and network resources.” Cameron also highlights that organizations using desktop compliance can benefit from SCCM R3, with its “increased policy and enforcement tools.”
Thanks for reading.
Hey everyone, we have had a lot of feedback about 3rd party patch, Software Update Management and the SC Update Publisher Tool. This week the System Center team in conjunction with Adobe is really excited to release their first SCUP Catalogs. This will enable ConfigMgr Administrators, to use SCUP and Manage their Adobe updates. Jason also just posted a blog about this here.
There are separate SCUP catalogs for Acrobat X and Reader X. You can download them from the following URLs:
http://armmf.adobe.com/arm-manifests/win/SCUP/Acrobat10_Catalog.cab http://armmf.adobe.com/arm-manifests/win/SCUP/Reader10_Catalog.cab
The guys over at Adobe have also released an Enterprise Administration Guide that includes support for deploying updates using SCUP and ConfigMgr. You can find this here. And if you would like hear more about SCUP and other deployment improvements Chris and Joel will be delivering a webcast on Feb 22nd. More on that is here.
Hi everyone, we wanted to make you aware of a new whitepaper that has just been published. Our partner Verdiem has released a whitepaper that highlights the integration between their Surveyor product and ConfigMgr. An example of a best of breed partner in this space, Verdiem have been delivering Power Management to our joint customers for 10 years. You can download the paper here.
Here is a snip from the introduction. Verdiem’s Power Management Pack for System Center Configuration Manager 2007 is an integrated solution that enables IT organizations to leverage the capabilities of SURVEYOR from within the System Center Configuration Manager console, and helps them to achieve 100% success rates for PC patching and software updates while reducing PC energy waste and the organization’s carbon footprint.
Some resources for you:
Hi everyone, we recently got a chance to sit with Brad again and talk about the upcoming MMS event in Las Vegas, the week of March 21-25. This year is going to be an amazing event for everyone, we really hope you can attend. An unprecedented amount of product news. demonstrations and vision will be available to you, more than any MMS event to date.
We will be communicating more through this blog as MMS draws closer, so keep tuned in for more sneak peaks and highlights of the event…….
Hello everyone, we are extremely pleased to announce that the most recent Gartner Magic Quadrant for PC Configuration Management Life Cycle Management Tools has recognized ConfigMgr as a Leader amongst the industries top competitors.
Configuration Manager is noticeably ahead of competitors in the Ability to Execute axis placement. In addition, Gartner quotes that “ConfigMgr appeared in Gartner client buying decisions more frequently than any other product in the market in 2010.”
The PCCLM report highlights the following strengths:
You can read the entire Gartner PCCLM report here.
Hey everyone, a date has come and passed, and we wanted to make sure readers of this blog were aware of it. As of January 11th, 2011 ConfigMgr SP1 Support has ended. The most current Service Pack organizations should be on to remain fully supported is Service Pack 2.
What does this mean? This link to our Lifecycle Policy explains the detail of this for you. In April of 2010, there were some changes to these Policies. The Microsoft Support Lifecycle policy requires that the product’s supported service pack be installed to continue to receive support (including security updates). Here is a link to the new Service Pack Lifecycle Support Policy effective April 13, 2010.
Service Pack Support Policy
Customers are highly encouraged to stay on a supported service pack to ensure they are on the latest and most secure version of their product. For customers on unsupported service pack versions, Microsoft offers limited troubleshooting support as follows:
Hey everyone, the ConfigMgr extensions for SCAP have been re-reased, and are now available here. Some may have seen Jason’s blog here, but we wanted to make sure all of you saw it as well.
Why the release? Why the new version number? The SCAP Extensions for ConfigMgr are a tool that convert SCAP datastream files into DCM Configuration Packs for use with Configuration Manager 2007. These extensions also convert DCM compliance reports back into SCAP format. This release includes a user guide that provides instructions for using the command-line tools, and detailed information about the mapping between the SCAP data formats and the DCM format.
The new version number is rather straightforward. The NIST certification is an annual renewal process, so every year we must re-validate the SCAP Extensions with NIST. This ensures that your reporting is current, accurate and acceptable to reporting/governing bodies.
Using the SCAP Extensions for ConfigMgr, your organization can optimize its existing Configuration Manager 2007 infrastructure to ensure that the computers you manage meet this federal compliance requirement and generate the requisite FDCC reports for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
Hey everyone, last week we posted Part 1 of a blog about how ConfigMgr 2007 R3 calculates power consumption and cost calculations. In this follow up post, we dive into the 2nd portion of the topic; cost calculation.
We have had a lot of interest from you about how ConfigMgr 2007 R3 calculates power consumption, and cost of power since we released R3. We took these questions and spoke with our Sr. Program Manager Onur Koc, to see if we could publish something that places some clarity around these. In this post we will cover the second area of understanding Power Cost Calculations.
Thank you to Onur and his team for providing this!
Power Cost Below is a typical power cost report the admin might see when the daily power cost report is run.
How is the Cost of Power Calculated? Power cost is calculated by multiplying power consumption with the cost of kWh report constant. For an example, we will again use Company X,
How to modify power cost constants? Administrators can go to the SQL Server Reporting Services report properties and modify the power cost constants (Cost of kWh and Currency) used for the power consumption reports. This allows your organization to be flexible about your own cost of power, and your localized currency. With any organization that is even partially distributed, this is extremely powerful. Different locations can be running on separate power grids within a city, state, province, country or more. This is even further complicated by currency differences. through this simple SQL Server Reporting Services customization, you can get an accurate picture of your cost of power.
Hey everyone, we have had a lot of interest from you about how ConfigMgr 2007 R3 calculates power consumption, and cost of power since we released R3. We took these questions and spoke with our Sr. Program Manager Onur Koc, to see if we could publish something that places some clarity around these. In this post we will cover the first area of understanding Power Consumption calculations, and next week we will publish part 2, Power Cost Calculations.
Power Consumption Below is a typical power consumption report that Administrators might see when the daily power consumption report is run.
Now that we understand what this report shows, let’s discuss how power consumption is calculated. Data for power consumption reports is calculated based on how long devices in a selected collection are in active, sleep or shutdown states for a given day or month. The ConfigMgr power management agents keep a detailed history for each day for the last 31 days on how many minutes a device is in these states. Monthly power consumption will be the same as daily; it is just that data will be summarized to monthly levels. Let’s take an example scenario to better illustrate how the calculations works.
Example Scenario: Company X has 1000 devices as part of power management.
For a selected day, a selected device is ON for 8 hours, in sleep for 15 hours and OFF (shutdown/hibernate) for 1 hour. The ConfigMgr power management agent stores this information and also knows if this device is a laptop or desktop system. Laptop and desktop devices have different average consumption figures which are configurable through report constants. Let’s assume that device is a laptop (no monitor connected by default).
We multiply active and inactive time with average power consumption constants.
*for selected day for this device Note: The power consumption difference between SLEEP and OFF (Shutdown/Hibernate) states is virtually zero.
Even though the same power policy is applied, each devices power consumption could be different based on variables such as user activity. At the end, all 1000 devices will report their power consumption through hardware inventory.
As an example - Based on 1000 devices (shown in Power Consumption by Day report). If the total power consumption calculated is 200,000 watts for the selected day, since 1000 devices reported power consumption information, the average power consumption by computer will be 200,000 watts/1000 = 200 watts per day, which will be shown in the ‘Daily Average Power Consumption by Computer report’.
How to modify power consumption constants
The Administrator can go to the report properties in SQL Server Reporting Services and modify the power consumption constants (Laptop/Desktop/Monitor ON/OFF/Sleep state power consumptions) used in existing power consumption reports. Or, the Administrator can chose to copy an existing report and define different power consumption constants.
Thanks for reading, next week we will follow up with Part 2 on Power Cost Calculations.