SMS Site Server Deployment Considerations

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You should plan the sequence in which you deploy and connect your SMS site servers. You build the SMS hierarchy by attaching sites to other sites. You attach sites by specifying parent sites for each site, except for the central site. Typically, you install the primary sites first, configure them for security, maintenance tasks, and status alerts, and then set up communications between them.

After you install and configure the senders and addresses between sites, install secondary sites. You cannot install a secondary site until you install its parent primary site. By using the guidelines here, create and document a plan for deploying your sites. For more information about SMS site concepts, see Chapter 2, "Understanding SMS Sites."

Caution:

  • If you are using the Windows Cluster service, do not install the site server or any SMS site system on the shared disk (cluster disk) of a Windows server cluster. For more information about SMS interoperability with the Windows Cluster service, download the "Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Clustering Interoperability with SMS" white paper from https://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sms/sms2/featusability/smsclst.mspx.

Deploying Central and Administrative Sites

The first SMS site you deploy is a primary site. It is not required that this site be your central site, although you can choose for it to be the central site. Large organizations that do not use their central site for administrative purposes might use the first primary site that is installed as an administrative site and later attach it to the central site. Often, a central site does not directly manage any clients (no SMS clients are assigned to the central site). Instead, the central site acts only as an administrative site - the central repository of information and administration, such as SMS reporting and remote tools.

Figure 10.2 shows a sample central and administrative site deployment plan, indicating only the order in which the SMS administrator plans to deploy the sites in the SMS hierarchy. Client deployment and site configuration is not included in this basic plan.

  1. Set up and configure primary site A00 as the administrative site for the hierarchy. It is used for reporting, help desk functions (such as remote control), and other administrative purposes. No clients will be assigned to this site.

  2. Install and configure a secondary site reporting to primary site A00.

  3. Install and configure another secondary site reporting to primary site A00.

  4. Install a fourth SMS site as a primary site with no clients reporting to it. Then, configure this site as a parent to primary site A00. It becomes the central site in the hierarchy, and all data propagates up to it. To reduce the load on the central site server, primary site A00 remains an administrative site for SMS software distribution.

  5. Install primary site B00 and configure it to use the central site as its parent. Both Advanced Clients and Legacy Clients will be assigned to this site.

  6. Attach a secondary site to primary site B00. Legacy Clients will be assigned to this site.

Figure 10.2: Sample site deployment plan

Figure 10.2: Sample site deployment plan

Configuring Primary Sites with Clients

After you install an SMS site, you use the SMS Administrator console to configure the site boundaries and other site settings. For planning information about these tasks, see the "Site Configuration Planning" section later in this chapter. In general, plan to perform post-installation tasks in the following order:

  1. Configure SMS object permissions.

  2. Configure tasks, alerts, and status system.

  3. Configure site boundaries and roaming boundaries.

  4. Prepare site system computers.

  5. Assign site system roles.

  6. Configure site communications.

  7. Attach SMS sites.

  8. Enable resource discovery and client installation methods.

  9. Enable SMS features one at a time.

If you attach sites that have existing hardware or software inventories, a burst of network traffic occurs as the inventory data is sent up the hierarchy. Remember this when you deploy your sites, so the extra traffic has as little effect on business functions as possible.

Deploying Secondary Sites

Before you install a secondary site, you must install a parent primary site. By default, the SMS Administrator console is not installed on a secondary site server. You can install the SMS Administrator console on the secondary site server or at a workstation that can connect to the parent primary site if you must distribute duties among administrators. You can set object permissions in the remote SMS Administrator console to limit access to only secondary site clients.

There are several different methods of installing a secondary site. The method you choose is dependent on the resources that are available to you at the location of the secondary site, available network bandwidth, and administrative privileges configured at your SMS site. For each secondary site in your hierarchy, plan to use one of these methods:

  • Use the SMS 2003 product CD.

  • Connect to an image of the SMS 2003 CD on a mapped network drive, hard disk, or a removable disk of the secondary site.

  • Use the SMS Administrator console at the primary site.

You can install the secondary site from the primary site server by having SMS transfer all required files from the primary site to the secondary site server during the installation process. Alternatively, you can reduce network traffic during the installation by inserting the SMS 2003 CD on the secondary site server and having SMS install the files from the CD.

For More Information

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