Data centers throughout the world are increasingly turning to server automation, and it's easy to understand why: deploying and managing servers manually is costly and time consuming, tying up IT staff who could otherwise be occupied on more strategic, revenue-generating projects. And as IT departments and corporate data centers grow, so does their complexity. Tracking assets, ensuring compliance policies are adhered to, and applying patches and updates in a timely manner to ensure security without interrupting operations as servers proliferate can become almost impossible.

Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 (SCCM, formerly known as Systems Management Server 2003 (SMS)), has been designed from the ground up to solve the problems of data center complexity. It turns the efficient deployment of servers into a straightforward, automated process, and can also be used to manage configuration changes and system updates. This level of server automation can drive up productivity and efficiency by reducing the amount of manual tasks to be performed and by maximizing the returns on hardware and software investments.

Efficient Server Deployment
At its most basic level, SCCM 2007 enables administrators to roll out new servers rapidly and consistently, using a template model to ensure that these new servers have a completely predictable configuration -- including all available updates and patches. This template model is fundamental to the way that administrators use Configuration Manager, so it's worth spending a few moments to consider how it works.

A fundamental task that an administrator carries out using System Center Configuration Manager 2007 is to design a standard server build using the customizable Task Sequencer that can be deployed anywhere in the data center. Using the Task Sequence Editor, the administrator builds a standard baseline deployment server configuration, and once this baseline configuration has been established appropriate functions and packages can be added to create servers for specific tasks.

When these server configurations have been defined using the baseline server as a starting point, the power of server deployment automation becomes apparent. To build a server for a particular purpose manually would take up many hours of an IT technician's time – with the danger that some updates may not be applied or that the server may be configured incorrectly. But using Microsoft's Windows Deployment Services and Configuration Manager Operating System Deployment (OSD), it's possible to take a naked piece of server hardware, plug it in, power it on, and connect it to the network, and in a short space of time, with no staff intervention at all, the computer will be up and running as a configured, updated and fully functional Windows Server.

Accurate Configuration Monitoring
Another important feature of Configuration Manager 2007 is the Desired Configuration Monitoring (DCM) feature. This automates configuration audits between baseline configuration settings that the administrator has defined and the actual configuration settings for a given server at any point in time. Essentially, once hardware, operating system, and application configuration settings have been defined, DCM compares desired settings with actual settings and reports configuration compliance. When a server drifts from the predefined configuration, administrators are alerted so they can take appropriate steps to bring the server's configuration back to the desired state without impacting other workloads.

Optimized Maintenance Windows
A key puzzle that many server administrators need to solve is how best to carry out server and application updates and maintenance, without impacting Service Level Agreements. SLAs limit the amount of time available for maintenance, and in general the higher the service level the less opportunity there is to bring down an individual server for maintenance without risking breaching the SLA. SCCM 2007 helps solves this problem with the inclusion of Maintenance Windows. These enable administrators to group servers by role and function, and to use rolling maintenance windows to ensure that all updates are done to a given group of servers fulfilling a particular roll in a timely manner – as security and other concerns demand – without impacting on any SLAs, by carrying out these activities during prescribed Maintenance Windows.

Simple Asset Management
Asset management is also an important part of server management for a number of reasons including license compliance, deployment planning, server usage optimization, and virtualization. System Center Configuration Manager 2007 supplies this with the addition of Asset Intelligence, which provides a comprehensive asset inventory. Asset Intelligence includes license management capabilities to keep track of application instances and ensure compliance with license requirements, and software usage metering so administrators can spot when server loads rise over time. This enables them to act proactively to plan for new servers to handle rising loads for particular applications before performance begins to suffer.

The reverse is also true: servers that are consistently under-utilized and applications that only need limited server resources can easily be identified and put forward as candidates for virtualization. Thanks to integration with Microsoft System Center's Virtual Machine Manager, considerable savings can be achieved by server consolidation, running multiple severs as virtual machines running on a single, previously under-utilized server.

ITIL Standards
As a medium- to long-term goal, many organizations are shaping their entire IT operations to meet the standards of the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) – a set of industry best practices and standards. Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) provides specific prescriptive guidance for managing Microsoft technologies to conform to ITL standards, moving through four states in its Core Infrastructure Optimization Model from Basic, through Standardized and Rationalized to a Dynamic IT infrastructure with fully automated management and dynamic resource usage. Configuration Manager 2007 provides key tools that help organizations move through the four states towards a fully dynamic IT infrastructure that is a strategic asset to the business.

Significant Business Benefits
Overall, Configuration Manager 2007 is a major upgrade to Systems Management Server 2003, introducing several important new features. The benefits that it can bring are significant, including efficient and timely server deployments, lower server administration costs, higher availability, and accurate asset tracking -- very attractive propositions for any company.