Well it's been a while and I'm finally back from testing SCRM and have just accepted/started in a new role as the SMS Performance and Manageability Program Manager. What does this mean, it means I now manage the product development of : The performance...

With the incredible success of SMS as a product, as well as MS's enterprise management strategy all-up, we (the SMS team) are growing in leaps and bounds! We have openings across the board for program managers, developers, and testers to help support...

Hi All, It's been nearly 6 months since my last post. As some of you know i've been working on System Center Reporting Manager for the last 9 months or so. I even got to meet some of you and present at this years MMS 2005 conference on SCRM (" Implementing...

Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003 Solution Accelerators deliver additional benefits for Windows Server System environments by delivering Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) and IT Infrastructure Library–based best practices and prescriptive guidance...

Not sure if this is of interest to anyone (I’d love to get feedback), but whenever I get asked to design a scalable hierarchy for a customer I run through these 20 or so questions with the consultant/customer to help me design a SMS2003 architecture based...

Hi All, It’s been awhile, as some of you have so clearly pointed out. Since my last post ( Mid September, has it really been that long?!!), I’ve been heads down working on the design and testing of System Center Reporting Server 2005 (try saying that...

After much blood, sweat and beer it ships. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=0ddfeb0a-86fd-4681-b65f-dfa67629932e&displaylang=en Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1) is primarily a rollup of a...

This is a follow up to the previous posting on the topic of Management Points. A number of you have asked some clarification questions which I’ll seek to answer here. Firstly there were a number of questions around when a client initiates a particular...

One of the most confusing concepts in SMS 2003 is the use and application of a Proxy MP (PMP). I’ll try to explain firstly what the PMP does and doesn’t do, and secondly address when you could consider implementing a PMP. Firstly the key benefit of deploying...

The SMS 2003 Capacity Planner Tool and Guide has gone live! Its available from the Microsoft Download center as well as via the following link from the SMS 2003 Deployment website. This has been many weeks and months in the making from both Muki...

TechNet Webcast: SMS2003 Hierarchy Planning and Design with the SMS2003 Hierarchy Capacity Planning and Hardware Sizing Tool - Level 300 Date: Friday, July 16, 2004 Time: 9:30 AM-11:00 AM Pacific Time (GMT-7, US & Canada ) The SMS2003 Capacity...

As I alluded to in a previous posting on SQL DB sizing, carefully defining changes to the defmof can play a large part in determining the performance of hardware inventory processing at a primary site. Often I have seen the performance of hardware inventory...

TechNet Webcast: SMS2003 Hierarchy Planning and Design with the SMS2003 Hierarchy Capacity Planning and Hardware Sizing Tool - Level 300 http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032254379&Culture=en-US Shameless self promotion...

The sizing of SQL DBs for SMS has always be a much debated topic for many years. In SMS1.2 and 2.0 days we generally recommended 1-200kb per client plus 50 Mb for a database size. DB Sizing changes for SMS 2003. Considerations: 1. One problem...

Managing Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003 http://www.microsoft.com/traincert/syllabi/2596afinal.asp This five-day instructor-led course provides students with the knowledge and skills to manage Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS)....

Distribution Point (DP) sizing has always been a little trickily. The issue is that a distribution point is basically a file/IIS server and as such, how do we size a machine, whose performance is based on both the number of connections and volume of file...

Using SMS2003 and pushing the client to the desktop/laptop seems to be causing a little confusion for some of you. So I thought I’d move away from performance/ scalability discussions for a moment and attempt to outline this process. The Push...

This tool is designed to assist SMS consultants and customers in the selection of a suitable SMS hierarchy design, as well as suggest likely hardware upon which to management the infrastructure. It is based on analysis performed by Kerry Lebel and...

This is all very new to me, its seems very strange writing to an audience i don't know. Anyway, welcome one and all. I don't want to waste your time I know you probably have thousands of Blogs to check. A little about myself and this blog. My...