Configuration Manager 2007 R3 Beta released!!!!

With the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day upon us, today, we are very pleased to announce the release of ConfigMgr 2007 R3 Beta.  Power management is at the core of the ConfigMgr 2007 R3 release, and addresses the need that many organizations have to monitor and reduce both power consumption and CO2 emissions.  R3 Power Management leverages the power management features built into Windows to apply relevant and consistent settings to computers in the organization.  There are three major components to power management in R3:

• Monitoring and Planning: The Power Management feature collects information about computer usage and power settings for computers in the origination.  Reports are provided to allow the administrator to analyze this data and determine optimal power management settings for computers.
• Enforcement: Power management allows the administrator to create power plans which can be applied to collections of computers. These power plans configure Windows power management settings on computers, and different power plans can be configured for peak and non-peak working hours.
• Compliance: After applying power plans to computers in the organization, the administrator can run reports to validate that power settings were correctly applied and to calculate power and carbon footprint savings across collections of computers.

In addition to Power Management, R3 will deliver enhancements to Scale and Performance.  In the scale area, R3 shifts the number of supported clients to 300,000 per site.  With respect to performance, R3 will provide improvements to AD Discovery with a new feature called Delta Active Directory Discovery.  When combined with an additional new feature called Dynamic Collection addition, Administrators will able to significantly reduce the time it takes to reflect AD changes, and Collection updates.  Finally, R3 delivers a new capability to OS Deployment, called Prestaged Media.  This will allow organizations to package their OS boot and install WIM image components into 1 common image, that can be provided to their hardware vendor, or supplier.  This feature builds on top of existing Task Sequence technology, and integrates fully with OS deployment capabilities. We would love to see you download and experience the beta of Configuration Manager 2007 R3.  You can find access to this download here.

System Center Configuration Manager 2007 Toolkit V2 Released!!!!

Today the System Center Configuration Manager 2007 Toolkit V2 went live on the Microsoft Download Center.  This release is a follow up to our original release back in 2007.  With this V2 release we re-introduced the Delete Group Class, MP Troubleshooter, Preload Package and Send Schedule Tools from the SMS 2003 Toolkit.   All four tools where frequently requested from our customers and we are happy to enable them for use with ConfigMgr 2007 with some added features.  The release also includes an updated Security Configuration Wizard Template for ConfigMgr 2007 SP2 and Windows Server 2008 R2.  Furthermore this release includes all the original 2007 Toolkit tools along with the new ones in one easy to install MSI.
The following list provides specific information about each tool in the toolkit.

• Client Spy - A tool that helps you troubleshoot issues related to software distribution, inventory, and software metering on Configuration Manager 2007 clients.
• Delete Group Class Tool - A tool used to remove inventory group definitions along with history data, tables, views and stored procedures for the group.
  • New in 2007: In addition to removing the entries in the GroupMap and AtttributeMap tables, Delete Group Class Tool also removes the inventory stored procedures, schema views and tables.
• Desired Configuration Management Migration Tool - A tool used to migrate from the DCM Solution for SMS 2003 to DCM in ConfigMgr 2007.
• Desired Configuration Management Model Verification Tool - A tool used by desired configuration management content administrators for the validation and testing of configuration items and baselines authored externally from the Configuration Manager console.
• Desired Configuration Management Substitution Variable Tool - A tool used by desired configuration management content administrators for authoring desired configuration management configuration items that use chained setting and object discovery.
• Management Point Troubleshooter Tool - A tool that checks a computer system before and after a management point installation to ensure that the installation meets the requirements for management points.
  • New in 2007: MP Troublshooter Tool can detect WebDAV rules and will provide simple automatic fix, which will help admin to correct issues like WebDAV authoring rules.  Also supports Native Mode.
• Policy Spy - A policy viewer that helps you review and troubleshoot the policy system on Configuration Manager 2007 clients.
• Preload Package Tool - A tool used to manually install compressed copies of package source files on Configuration Manager 2007 sites.
  • New in 2007: Preload Package Tool now supports compressing packages before transferring them across the network.  Supported Packages: Software Distribution Package, Virtual Application Package, Boot Image, Operating System Image, Operating System Install Package and Driver Package.
• Security Configuration Wizard Template for Configuration Manager 2007 - The Security Configuration Wizard (SCW) is an attack-surface reduction tool for the Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system. Security Configuration Wizard determines the minimum functionality required for a server's role or roles, and disables functionality that is not required. The Configuration Manager 2007 Service Pack 2 Security Configuration Wizard template supports new site system definitions and enables the required services and ports.
• Send Schedule Tool - A tool used to trigger a schedule on a Client or trigger the evaluation of a specified DCM Baseline. You can trigger a schedule either locally or remotely.
  • New in 2007: Send Schedule Tool can now trigger DCM Baseline evaluation.
• Trace32 - A log viewer that provides a way to easily view and monitor log files created and updated by Configuration Manager 2007 clients and servers.

System Center Configuration Manager Reporting Dashboard Beta released

We are pleased to announce the Beta release of our Dashboard Solution Accelerator. 
The System Center Configuration Manager 2007 Dashboard lets customers utilize a browser based graphically rich reporting experience that showcases the robust reporting capabilities of the world’s leading system management product.  The dashboard will help you stay informed of application and operating system deployments, security updates, system health status and more; whether on the plasma screen in your operations center, or your administrative desktop.
Some key benefits of the Dashboard are:

• Provides dependable, timely access to key information: The dashboard lets you easily stay on top of deployments, security updates, client health, and compliance status. 
• Easy to install and configure:  The dashboard allows customers to quickly integrate your data in just minutes.  Utilize either the base set of datasets “out of the box” or choose your own.
• Easy to customize: The dashboard can easily be customized to meet the needs of your different departments.  Any dataset in the Configuration Manager database can be presented on the dashboard, in chart, gauge, and table formats.
• Flexible & interactive: Administrators can easily filter data and create ad hoc, custom views. Filters allow users to quickly drill down from high-level to more specific data.

We welcome you to download and evaluate this add on to Configuration Manager 2007 today.  Here are some key links and resources:

• System Center Configuration Manager Dashboard website link
• Direct link to the Connect site for the Dashboard beta program
• Link to send feedback
• System Center Configuration Manager website