Site System Roles

  • Article

The following are important site system roles that are new or enhanced in SMS 2003:

  • Client access point

  • Distribution point

  • Management point

  • Server locator point

  • Reporting point

SMS 2003 does not support logon points, a site system role that was available in previous versions of SMS. .

For more information, see Chapter 2, "Understanding SMS Sites," Chapter 8, "Designing Your SMS Sites and Hierarchy," and Chapter 15, "Deploying and Configuring SMS Sites."

Client Access Point

The CAP role is the point of contact between Legacy Clients and the SMS site server. The CAP passes all Legacy Client data to the site server. Legacy Client computers contact the CAP for management information from the SMS site server.

Distribution Point

A distribution point is a site system role that stores software package files so clients can access them during the software distribution process. Distribution points handle significant client network activity. It is a best practice to assign this role to one or more computers other than the site server.

SMS 2003 distribution points use Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) to automatically detect the client network connection capacity and adjust transfer rates efficiently. BITS can be enabled on any SMS 2003 distribution point that is running IIS.

Management Point

The Advanced Client communicates with SMS sites by using management points.

Like CAPs, management points provide Advanced Clients with configuration details and advertisements. They also receive inventory, software metering, and client status information.

To be a management point, the server must have IIS installed and enabled.

Server Locator Point

The server locator point locates CAPs for Legacy Clients and management points for Advanced Clients at client logon time. The server locator point replaces the SMS 2.0 logon point and eliminates most traffic between SMS and domain controllers.

Server locator points are supported only at primary sites and are used for installation of both Legacy Clients and Advanced Clients. The number of server locator points included in a site depends on the number of clients in that site.

Reporting Point

A reporting point is a site system role that hosts the Report Viewer code and any supplemental reports. To be a reporting point, the server must have IIS installed and enabled.

Reporting points are implemented on primary sites. Large organizations with numerous report users should plan for multiple reporting points at different hierarchy levels. You use multiple reporting points to provide different reporting-point access URLs to different sets of users for accessing reports.

For More Information

Did you find this information useful? Please send your suggestions and comments about the documentation to smsdocs@microsoft.com.