System Center Configuration Manager

Microsoft’s System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) is a tool designed for system administrators that allows them to manage and automate operations on the administered machines.

The suite encompasses multiple products, each designed for specific tasks. They can help the administrator not just deploy software to the clients but also to create safe copies of the systems as well as manage the creation of virtual machines, remote manage them or check their hardware and software resources.

Using the Configuration Manager utility included in the package administrators can deploy the installation of operating systems, applications and updates.

The tool also collects details about the clients (hardware and software) and stores them in a Microsoft SQL Server database that permits generating of reports for a more accurate view of the clients in the system and their capabilities.

Creating safe copies of the servers and all the machines in the network can be done with Data Protection Manager, a tool capable of initiating bare metal recovery (BMR) operation.

With the Operations Manager the admins are offered a glimpse into the performance of the infrastructure, while the App Controller comes in handy with configuring, deploying, and managing of virtual machines and services in multiple cloud platforms.

Automating operations such as creating, monitoring and deploying services and processes on the clients is a job for Orchestrator, the workflow management utility in SCCM.

System Center Configuration Manager includes a hefty bunch of tools that permit administrators remote management of the clients and running various operations on multiple machines at the same time.