Microsoft Configuration Manager Reviews

We use System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) to manage workstations and servers in our Windows environment. We are primarily a Windows-only environment, which is what SCCM is designed to manage. It uses WMI underlying technology to ensure that it is compatible with all versions of Windows, from Windows XP to Windows 10. We use it to manage our Windows workstations and Servers. We use SCCM to do many things, like deploy operating systems, deploy applications, configure settings, gather compliance data, enforce software patching and run reports for software installations information.

We do not use it to do Mobile Device Management, though it does have that capability.

It does not manage products outside of Microsoft operating systems, so this product would be for Microsoft-heavy businesses.

Using SCCM allows our team to reimage a computer within an hour and have it ready to deploy to a user in less than a day. If we get a new workstation model, we can easily add drivers to the server and it will be compatible with our image. We can count on images and workstations having a specific configuration and having it enforced. It allows us to spend less time doing manual work and more time helping users. It also gives us good business intelligence through its reporting features.

• Deployment of a standardized operating system
• Application deployment to all domain machines
• Configurations enforcement
  
• Compliance data gathering

Ensuring configuration integrity across the domain is essential for maintaining an environment, so SCCM helps our company enforce a uniform configuration. SCCM’s ability to deploy applications to maintain updates and up-to-date software is also essential. Many vendors will not support end users if we are not on the latest software release, so this allows the IT department to control application versions and deployments. SCCM is also essential in maintaining WSUS updates, as those are a challenge to enforce as well.

SCCM is a pretty great product already. It has benefited greatly from having been around since its original incarnation as Small Business Server 2003. It would be cool if the SCCM client had some PowerShell cmdlets built into it, as managing clients remotely can be a pain without knowing the WMI calls to run remotely. Also, continued development PowerShell integration with the console (which they have already started developing).

Improperly set security settings can lead to console performance issues. SCCM client issues are also inevitable. We recently had to diagnose and fix downloading issues caused by older BranchCache issues with the old client. Otherwise, the client and server are very stable.

No. SCCM has the ability to be as big or as small as needed by the business. It can be used by businesses ranging from single office companies to massive international corporations.

N/A. SCCM is one of the most popular products on the market, so there are LOTS of online help articles for almost any problem you will have. I have never contacted their support because it's expensive, and I am stubborn and like to figure out problems myself.

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The initial setup takes planning and careful consideration. It will also take input from your networking team, as it will take some router configuration to get PXE booting working. The overall design of the SCCM servers needs to be considered as well, as you can't change the big picture structure later. You have to decide if you want only a primary site or if you want a central administration hub with primary sites reporting to it, so it will take planning to setup.

Configuring the groups, collections, boundaries, and server roles takes time as well. It will also take an understanding of the business's needs and will require IT helpdesk input to be most effective.

Configuring applications and settings takes a bit less time once you have the underlying infrastructure setup, but SCCM doesn't really help you discover install commands outside of MSI or APPX packages. To be fair, there's not much they can do, but a technician will need to be aware of that.

I implemented it, so in-house. 

Microsoft has affordable pricing for Small to Medium Businesses, and it comes with many SMB packages already. It is worth investing in these, because the returns in automation and environmental integrity pay back the cost.

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SCCM is a fantastic solution whose use is only limited by your creativity. Since it allows you to use PowerShell or VBScript to configure settings or execute procedures, a technician can make the any system do what they would like, provided they know how to do it programmatically. It can be a bit of a challenge to setup, configure, and maintain, but once you do, it will benefit you greatly. It is a complicated, complex product, so there is a learning curve, but that complexity is intrinsically linked to its ability to be a powerful tool. If setup improperly, SCCM can wipe out entire environments (don’t make an OS a required task sequence to all computers, for instance), but that is difficult to do.

The best features that I really appreciated are software and application pushing, Microsoft patching with Wsus integration, O.S. deployment with PXE (with driver installation, latest patches and customization), mobile management with Intune Connector, file inventory on pcs, users statistic usage about applications, hardware and software inventory.

We had the opportunity to easily manage Microsoft patching deployment with Wsus role installed or maintaining Wsus infrastructure separated from SCCM.

In this latter case we created properly GPO and script to push patch centrally and with appropriate scheduling. At the same time mobile management with MDM ability and encrypting as well, software and application pushing and updating overriding security concerns and O.S. deployment was some of the top features that we really appreciated.
I appreciated Distribution points on the cloud and ability to publish on demandapplications for users groups.

In this case users could choose from software list to automatically install some missing application without asking directly to IT team.

I think that some improvements would be appreciated on application package deployment for whom that has not a deep scripting ability like me.

SCCM is an high CPU/memory conuming application and so it would be fine that Microsoft could improve performances.

I started utilizing SMS 2003 since 9 years ago, since 4 years ago I managed and directed differentsmigration projects and zero installations on corporate companies with CAS, Primary and Secondary Sites.

At the same time I utilized this product during daily operations like reporting, software pushing, Microsoft patching, mobile managemen with satisfaction

You should consider that this product is particularly complex and delicate at the same time and so, the most difficult thing, was related to find causes of any installation delay or misconfiguration

About stability I did not find any particular problem.

When I got some problems on internet is quite easy to find consistent answers.

The only thing that I did not appreciated it was the case that, if you do not have CAS, you can install only one primary sites and all other sites could be only secondary sites.

This problem could be solved installing CAS later but about secondary site upgrade I am not aware that they can be automatically updated to primary site without uninstallation and re-installation.

Customer service is very good.

Technical support is very good and there are a lot of documentation on internet to help you on deployment/usage too.

I utilized for a while PDQ, spiceworks and psexec too but they are not caomparable with wide SCCM options/features.

The first setup was quite complex but primarily due to wide capabilities of the product itself that need time to be customized.

It was implemented by an in-house team coordinated and managed from me.

In my opinion SCCM SP1 is great.

Setup and licensing was quite expensive as well at start up stage. When all procedures have been implemented like collections, application and packages, wsus automatically deployment, O.S preparation, mobile management policies, reporting day by day, time to be spent to manage it would be more limited but, considering the importance and quantity of activity done from SCCM it would be normal to have a lot of hours daily spent from a team to utilize this product (obviously it would depends on company too)

PDQ, Spiceworks, psexec, GPO, scripting…

SCCM is really great but you must consider that you will take a lot of time to manage it entirely.

You should consider that this product would be, in the future, more and more strategic for companies about security concerns, task automation and for your CV too.

I have a lot of guide and screenshot as well:

http://www.alessandromazzanti.com/search/label/SCCM%202012

Here is my blog link:

http://www.alessandromazzanti.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mazzanti