By Scott Swigart
As I've said in my other tips, I'm looking to come up to speed on the System Center products as quickly as possible. Webcasts are a great way to check out a product without downloading and installing big products. The Technet Webcast: Introduction to System Center Configuration Manager 2007 did what I needed and brought me up to speed quickly.
Right off the bat, I could see that this Webcast was going to be heavy on demos, which is the best way for me to learn. The first demo jumped right into the management console and I got a really good understanding of how it's changed since SMS 2003.
The first demo did a great job in showing off the functionality in the Admin console in a way that I could use. They've added a lot more site system roles, and I was happy to see the presentation quickly explain them.
And then the next demo showed setting up and configuring these roles:
After this, the presentation walked through deploying operating systems. I've been really curious about how this works and has been improved.
TIP: A sweet feature of Configuration Manager 2007 is the ability to provision systems that are not connected to a network (like new systems that come into a receiving area).
The next demo was fantastic, and I really got to see in action how Configuration Manager 2007 deploys a full operating system.
There are some good enhancements in the area of Windows Server Update Services integration as well, and again, another great demo:
A key feature of Configuration Manager 2007 is "Desired Configuration Management", which lets you know when the configuration of servers or clients "drift" from what's approved. Again, they didn't just show slides, they did a demo:
The final demo shows "Service Windows", and how you can configure when certain configuration changes are allowed to run:
I'm sold on watching Webcasts. They have easy navigation, letting you skip to the part that's interesting to you, and they capture the Q&A between the presenter and the audience, which is really informative:
If you're interested in learning about System Center Configuration Manager 2007, I highly recommend using this Webcast:
Introduction to System Center Configuration Manager 2007