MS SMS and similar 3rd party tools

[bshbsh]

I have a Win2K3 environment, AD/DNS/DHCP. Most of the servers are Win2k3, most clients are XP. I use 3rd party app to manage patch management. I have about 50 servers running Web services, databases, sharepoint, email (not X-Change), et al. I use the Cisco Log management tool to analyze and
monitor the logs across the n/w, servers, switch, firewall. But it mostly montors security logs.

The pile of servers keeps growing on me and I wanted something which can monitor the performace, statistics (the heartbeat) of the servers mainly. I guess what I am asking for is a SMS server. Am I right in this assumption?

If SMS server is the way to go, how big is the ordeal. How much time, effort, mapower would it require to setup and integrate everything with SMS and ultimately managing it?

Would I be able to integrate both domain and non-domain servers, servers and clients (about 150 XP)? How about
non Windows servers?

Lastly, are there any 3rd party solutions which can do just about the same thing. I understand that there might be a cost involved.

If there are any earlier links which talks of the same, pointers would be helpful. I know there is a SMS forum, but the activity level seems to be low in that forum.

Please advice.
Thanks.

 

[FloDiggs]

So are you wanting a monitoring solution or patch management solution? SMS will handle application deployment and patch management, but you would need to look at something totally different if you are wanting to do strictly monitoring. In the Microsoft world you would be looking at SCCM (SMS) and SCOM (MOM), or System Center Essentials, which combines the main functions of SCCM and SCOM for small environments. We set up a test SCE server and had nothing but problems, so I wouldn't recommend that at all. Other SMS solutions would include Altiris and LanDesk. Both have pretty good followings and are considered members of the "Big 3" in terms of SMS applications. There are a million monitoring solutions out there that you could look into. A combo of Cisco Works and Whats Up Gold is common and pretty decent. There is also a product call IpMonitor that is very efficient and cheaper than a lot of other solutions. I don't know if that helps or just confuses the matter further, but that is my $.02.

 

[bshbsh]

FloDiggs,
Thanks a bunch really for your inputs. It did help me a great deal.

 

[58sniper]

SCE works great, as does SCOM and SCCM. We haven't tried SCMDM yet - that's next.

As FloDiggs said, there are a million combinations. It all depends on what you're after. I prefer SCOM for monitoring, WSUS for patch management, CNA for Cisco monitoring of small environments, Cisco Works for larger networks.

Pat Richard
Microsoft Exchange MVP
Contributing author The Complete Reference: Microsoft Exchange Server 2007