Chapter 4: Installation of SMS

Overview

By now you understand the concepts of operations and systems management as discussed in Chapter 1. You also know about the different products, services, and tools such as Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM 2005), Systems Management Server (SMS 2003), Microsoft Update (MU), and Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) available to help you manage your IT operations, as discussed in Chapter 2. This knowledge allows you to design your own Operations Management solution, combining the best features of each product and service. However, even the most well-designed and elaborate solution can fail if not well implemented. In this chapter, we review the following:

• The SMS architecture

• Server roles

• Hardware and software requirements

• Client types

• Active Directory integration

• Database usage

• Installation

We'll begin to deepen our understanding of the architecture behind SMS 2003 so that you can deploy this product in your environment and take advantage of its set of features combined with MOM 2005.