System Center Essentials Team Blog : WSUS

SCE 2010 Public Beta is HERE!

damills — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 18:07:00 GMT

Do you know what time it is? Yes, it’s THAT time…time for you to check out the next full release of System Center Essentials – SCE 2010! For those of you who were with us for the release of System Center Essentials 2007 a little over two years ago, you know that this is Microsoft’s IT management solution specifically designed for midsized businesses. From one console, SCE allows you to monitor and manage your servers, clients, hardware, software, and IT services.

Over the last two years, we’ve been getting some great feedback from customers using SCE 2007, investigating ways to improve on the existing features AND address a new trend we’ve been seeing with customers’ virtualizing server workloads. Based on all this input, the engineering team has invested a lot of work into making the following updates in this next release. We’ve -

Integrated server virtualization management support, built on VMM 2008 R2 technology, including easy template-based creation of new virtual servers and live migration
Adjusted licensing limits to allow for management of virtual servers
Rewritten setup for an easier, intuitive installation
Built-in automatic Microsoft Update subscription maintenance
Provided flexible computer grouping
Added additional software distribution target criteria

Plus a lot, lot more!So, what are you waiting for? Stop reading my blog entry and head to this URL to download the SCE 2010 trial! http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/ee470677.aspx

David Mills

Sr. Product Manager

Essentials 2007 SP1 Support for WSUS 3.0 SP2/SQL Server 2008

ravichin — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 01:04:08 GMT

Essentials 2007 SP1 Support for WSUS 3.0 SP2

System Center Essentials 2007 SP1 supports WSUS 3.0 SP1 being upgraded to WSUS 3.0 SP2. Customers who are currently running Essentials 2007 SP1 can upgrade to WSUS 3.0 SP2. For how to download WSUS 3.0 SP2 and the improvements in WSUS 3.0 SP2, please see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/972455.

FAQs:

Q) I currently have Essentials 2007 SP1 installed on Windows Server 2003. Can I upgrade WSUS 3.0 SP1 to WSUS 3.0 SP2?

A) Yes. You can upgrade to WSUS 3.0 SP2, if you have installed Essentials 2007 SP1 on Windows Server 2003 (either 32-bit or 64-bit).

Q) I currently have Essentials 2007 SP1 installed on Windows Server 2008. Can I upgrade WSUS 3.0 SP1 to WSUS 3.0 SP2?

A) Yes. You can upgrade to WSUS 3.0 SP2, if you have installed Essentials 2007 SP1 on Windows Server 2008 (either 32-bit or 64-bit).

Q) I currently have Essentials 2007 SP1 installed on Windows Server 2003 with SQL Server 2005 Express Edition. Can I upgrade WSUS 3.0 SP1 to WSUS 3.0 SP2?

A) Yes. Essentials 2007 SP1 supports upgrading WSUS 3.0 SP1 to WSUS 3.0 SP2 with SQL Server 2005 Express Edition or SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition. This is supported regardless of whether the database is installed on the Essentials management server or installed on a remote computer.

Q) Can I install Essentials 2007 SP1 on a system on which WSUS 3.0 SP2 is already installed?

A) The Essentials product team is investigating this and will be updating this issue in an upcoming blog post

Essentials 2007 SP1 Support for SQL Server 2008

Q: Is Essentials 2007 SP1 supported with SQL Server 2008.

A) No, Essentials 2007 SP1 is not supported with SQL Server 2008. Essentials 2010 will support SQL Server 2008.

Caching Microsoft Update content in System Center Essentials

TyofWA — Thu, 22 May 2008 21:05:00 GMT

A question came up in the Technet forums around content caching, and what variables exist to adjust it. The footprint of cached content on the wSUS/SCE server take into consideration four variants:

Products (XP/2K3 as examples)
Classifications (Seciruty / Critical / Service packs)
Languages (EN, DE, JA, etc..)
Choosing to utilize Express files ( I will explain this one in more detail below)

SCE default configuration will bring in nearly 8GB of content; provided your needs stay within one language.

...Now about Express files..

There are two ways that a package can install on your managed systems; Stand-alone, or Express. For stand-alone, all the possible changes which can happen during that installation are contained in the package. Let's say Foo.Dll is revising to 1.2, and Bar.Exe is revising to 1.3. In this case, the old Foo.Dll and Bar.exe would be removed from the system, and the new ones applied. This is the safest, and most common way patching happens. However, it means that the entire package travels across the LAN/WAN when installation is necessary.

In the Express scenario, it may be that Workstation1 already had Foo.dll version 1.2, but not the latest version of Bar.dll. It's neighbor, Workstation2 had just the opposite. If the EXPRESS files were present, Workstation1 and 2 would ask the SCE/WSUS server for only the binary ranges it needed, and the acutal bytes which went across your LAN/WAN would be very close in footprint to the bytes which were needed to simply replace the specific files targeted.

So, Express seems to be the winner here (almost). In order to provide this optimization, the Update Services infrastructure needs to have fault tolerance. Express packages will not work for 100% of the systems in need of patching. Therefore, enabling express option means that the system will download the standalone version of an update as well as the Express version of that update. Should it need to fall-back due to failure, the standalone version will be locally available. Also, the express files are 2-4 times as large as the standalone packages.

The tradeoff question is: Should the optimization target ingress to the WSUS server at the cost of more LAN/WAN traffic, or the converse?

Determining which packages are "Needed" across your managed environment

TyofWA — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 23:40:00 GMT

Over the past six months, many within the System Center Essentials community provided feedback on the inability of SCE to show which updates and software are needed by managed systems. Workarounds exist today for Microsoft Update content, but when it comes to locally-published content, or driver content obtained from a partner catalog the question remains unanswered.

It is possible to call into the WSUS 3.0 APIs and obtain this information through the use of Powershell scripting using the steps below.

Install PowerShell on your SCE server, or workstation running the SCE remote management console.
Copy the attached script, and save it as 'NeededContent.ps1'
Launch the powershell console window
Sign the file, or set script execution to 'unrestricted' by running the following command: Set-ExecutionPolicy UnRestricted !! Note - It is important to understand the possible risks of running unsigned scripts. More details at: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc137728.aspx
Call the file from the powershell console window. If it was located at d:\myscripts\ , the command would read: PS > D:\myscripts\NeededContent.ps1

Additional notes -

You will need to execute the script in the context of a WSUS administrator, or WSUS reporter role.
The script allows for the display of Microsoft Update content as well, but it will take considerably longer to execute due to the large volume of updates.
The script will filter out packages which are declined.

Hope this helps!
/Ty