Getting Ready to Operate Essentials 2007

After you have installed System Center Essentials 2007, you should complete the Computer and Device Management Wizard, the Feature Configuration Wizard, and the Update Management Configuration Wizard to complete initial configuration.. To start using System Center Essentials 2007, there are a number of tasks that you must complete. For more information on these tasks, see the video presentation on the Microsoft TechNet site.

  • Set up the Daily Health Report to receive a daily summary of system health. You could have done this as part of the Feature Configuration Wizard.

  • Review and update the computers that Essentials 2007 is managing. If you have just run the Computer and Device Management Wizard, these may be up to date.

  • Review Management Pack guides to make sure they meet your monitoring needs.

Set Up the Daily Health Report

The Daily Health Report notifies you daily with a summary of current information about alerts, updates, software, and inventory in your environment. The Daily Health Report can be set up when you complete the Feature Configuration Wizard after installing Essentials 2007. If you did not set up the Daily Health Report at that time, you can use the following steps to do so:

To set up the Daily Health Report

  1. In the Essentials 2007 console, click the Administration button.

  2. In the Administration pane, click Settings.

  3. In the Settings pane, double-click Daily Health Report.

  4. On the Daily Health Report tab, select Yes and fill out the information in the dialog box.

  5. Click OK.

Review Your Managed Computers

There are a number of regular tasks that should be performed to make sure that Essentials 2007 is managing all computers that you want it to manage and that what you need to update these computers is ready when you are. The following text provides details of Essentials 2007 best practices.

  • Schedule discovery so that new computers in your environment are added to Essentials 2007 automatically and regularly.

  • Create groups whenever needed to customize your software and update deployment or your monitoring reports.

  • Synchronize updates from Microsoft Update daily. To adjust automatic synchronization settings, use the following steps:

To change automatic synchronization settings

  1. In the Essentials 2007 console, click the Administration button.

  2. In the Administration pane, click Settings.

  3. In the Settings pane, expand Update Management and double-click Synchronization Schedule.

  4. On the Synchronization tab, select Synchronize daily at and fill in a time of day.

  5. Click OK.

Adjust auto-approval to approve the updates in which you are most interested. To adjust automatic update approval settings, use the following steps:

To change automatic update approval settings

  1. In the Essentials 2007 console, click the Administration button.

  2. In the Administration pane, click Settings.

  3. In the Settings pane, expand Update Management and double-click Auto-Approvals.

  4. Do any of the following:

    • On the Revisions tab, you can choose whether to automatically approve revised updates.

    • On the SCE Updates tab, you can set Essentials 2007 to automatically update itself.

    • On the Approvals tab, you can select which updates you would like automatically approved. If you want to test updates on a separate system before deploying them in your enterprise, don't use automatic approval, but instead set up the updates to be approved manually.

  5. Click OK.

Note

If you are importing update catalogs from Microsoft verified partners, these must be manually approved before deployment.

Review Management Pack Guides

Essentials 2007 Management Packs are customizable, although many users can proceed with the Management Packs as installed. Some additional Management Packs may need to be imported if you have particular needs that the default Management Packs don't address; for example, monitoring ASP .NET 2.0.

Management Pack Guides contain information about the settings available for Management Packs that monitor applications that provide critical services, such as Microsoft Exchange Server, Active Directory, Microsoft SQL Server, and so on. Use the Guides to verify that there are no further configuration steps, and continue to optimize the Management Pack according to your needs. For more information on Managemetn Pack Guides, see the Management Pack Guide home page. For more information about customizing the monitoring data collected by Essentials 2007, see "How to Author with System Center Essentials."