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Configuration Manager

by Kerrie Meyler, Byron Holt, and Greg Ramsey

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4/26/2009

Been busy working on the book

Yes I realize the last entry was in November - announcing a tinyurl to the book page on Amazon. Things have been busy.
On April 14, all chapters were completed and submitted to the publisher. This week, we are scheduled to begin participating in the production cycle - which consists of reviewing copy edit changes and then reviewing the proofs, which include the laid out pages. This typically takes 4-6 weeks, then everything is wrapped up and sent to the printer - this will probably be the end of June or early July.
Once it arrives back from the printer, it typically takes about 10 days to get to Amazon to begin fulfilling orders.
 
The book is anticipated to be between 1100-1200 pages in length, and includes coverage of R2 and details for using Windows Server 2008 for site server components. Look for a foreward authored by Microsoft!
 
I would like to thank the many people in the community who helped this book come to fruition - this includes Byron Holt, Greg Ramsey, Tony Puca, Jason Sandys, Cameron Fuller, Pete Zerger, and Jannes Alink. A huge thanks also goes to Pete Zerger and the folks at AKOS for building out the lab used in the book and making it available during the many months of the authoring cycle!
 
If you'll be at MMS this week, several of us will be there - look for Kerrie and Greg, and contributors Jason, Cameron, Pete, and Jannes.
10:04 AM | Add a comment | Permalink | Blog it | Config Manager General
5/31/2008

Ten Reasons to Use Configuration Manager

How does using Configuration Manager make your life as a systems administration easier? While our book will cover the features and benefits of Configuration Manager in detail, here's a quick "Top 10" list:
  1. The bulk of your department's budget goes towards paying for contractors to perform operating system and software upgrades, rather than paying talented people (like you!) the big bucks to implement the platforms and processes to automate and centralize management of company systems.
  2. You realize systems management would be much easier if you had visibility and control of all your systems from a single management console.
  3. Your sales team uses laptops that haven't been updated in two years because they NEVER come into the home office.
  4. You don't have the internal manpower to apply updates to your systems manually every month.
  5. Within a few days of updating your system configurations to meet corporate security requirements, you discover several have already mysteriously "drifted" out of compliance.
  6. When you try to install Vista for the Accounting department, you realize Vista can't run on half the computers, because they only have 256 MB of RAM.
  7. Keeping your organization compliant with regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPPA, or FISMA has become your new full-time job.
  8. You spent your last vacation on a trip from desktop to desktop installing Office 2007.
  9. Your production environment is so diverse and distributed that you can no longer keep track of which software versions should be installed to which system.
  10. By the time you finally finish updating your system standards documentation, everything has changed and you have to start all over again!

Sure, there is some humor in here; but if any of these areas hit home, you should investigate Microsoft's newest version of their System Center application for systems management.

10:12 AM | Add a comment | Permalink | Blog it | Config Manager General

Welcome

This blog is maintained by Kerrie Meyler, Byron Holt, Greg Ramsey, and Anthony Puca, in conjunction with our forthcoming book on Configuration Manager: System Center Configuration Manager 2007 Unleashed (Sams)
9:58 AM | Add a comment | Permalink | Blog it | Books
 

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