What's New in System Center Essentials 2007 Service Pack 1

  • Article

This topic describes some of the improvements and major changes in functionality that are included in System Center Essentials 2007 Service Pack 1 (SP1).

What's New

In response to customer requests and other feedback from Essentials 2007 users, several new enhancements have been added in this Service Pack.

Setup improvements

  • Fixed the most common points of installation failure

  • Richer content in installation logs support easier troubleshooting

Support for managing workgroup-joined computers

  • Essentials 2007 SP1 supports managing computers not directly joined to the domain; for example, a Web server in the perimeter network.

Support for monitoring SNMPv1 network devices

  • Discover and monitor both SNMP v1 and SNMP v2 devices

  • Specify the device type during discovery

Support for additional platforms

  • Support for using a remote SQL Server 2005 instance on a computer with a different architecture (x86 or x64) than that of the computer running the Essentials 2007 management server.

  • Support for running the Essentials 2007 management server, console, and agent on computers running Windows Server 2008. Management packs for Windows Server 2008 and its role will be available shortly after the release of Windows Server 2008.

  • Note

    Full production support of Essentials 2007 SP1 on Windows Server 2008 is not yet available as of the release of Essentials 2007 SP1. Microsoft will announce full support for Essentials 2007 SP1 on Windows Server 2008 within 90 days of the release of Windows Server 2008.

Improved update management

  • Multiple auto-approval rules

  • New options for importing catalogs of updates for Microsoft partner software and hardware

  • Import catalogs into Essentials 2007 from a UNC share

  • Installation files are not downloaded until the update is approved

Improvements in management pack quality

  • Management packs have been tuned and enhanced; default alert “noise” reduced.

  • Script errors in Base OS, AD, Exchange, SQL Server management packs were fixed.

Improvements in performance

  • Reduced memory usage by Operations Manager 2007 services by approximately 70% in Essentials 2007 SP1 through tuning

  • Total footprint has been reduced from 1.2 GB to approximately 800 MB on a single server installation that includes SQL Server 2005 Express Edition

  • In Alert views, row selection is three times quicker, and Actions and Reports are fetched in the background

Improvements in usability

  • Copy (Ctrl+C) is supported in the Alert details pane

Improved backup and restore tools

  • Database encryption key backup and restore tool

  • WSUS Certificate restore tool

Diagram view improvements

  • Arrange the nodes of a diagram and save the rearranged diagram

  • Drill down through virtual groups in a diagram (by double-clicking objects) to reveal the source of a problem

  • Export diagrams to Visio

Other improvements

  • Script support for diagnostic tasks has been added.

  • Specific objects are displayed in Override Summary by name (such as server1\C:)