System Center Configuration Manager overview and history

- [Presenter] Let's take a look at the history and the reasons that Microsoft has for System Center. So, why do we have System Center? Well it's needed to control computers for security, updates, and asset inventory, and it's a centralized system that works the best. There's a long history of System Center products with Microsoft. System Manager Server or SMS was originally deployed with NT 4 in the 1990s. The product was difficult to use and mainly deployed applications for Microsoft and some third-party programs. It also had some control and monitoring of basic computer functions. Microsoft Operations Manager, or MOM, came out in 2000 to incorporate Active Directory to SMS. We could then use Group Policy and Security Groups to manage computers and deploy products like applications and operating systems, and monitor computers and servers. By the time 2007 came around, we had the first System Center suite. The main product was Configuration Manager, which we'll be talking about in this course. Microsoft said it could deploy operating systems, deploy software applications, software updates, meter software usage, assess variation from desired configurations, take hardware and software inventory and remotely administer computers. Well that is a mouthful, and Microsoft came out with some improved versions in 2012. The 2012 System Center improved on the 2007 product but added additional functionality such as mobile management. It also added Orchestrator and better endpoint protection capabilities. The main additions were to mobile and overall security. By the time we had System Center 2016, it was more about refining and upgrading the capabilities of 2016, such as adding Intune for even better mobile management and better monitoring and asset management. We should also note that Microsoft stopped naming System Center based on the year. They refer to it as current branch, which means whatever version was currently out at the time. For instance if you saw a 1603 version, it meant it came out in 2016 in March. For 2019, the System Center suite, it focuses more on three main areas. It adds more capabilities to the existing components and features, which we're going to discuss in upcoming videos. It also brings integration for Windows Server 2019. And last but not least, System Center 2019 adds more hybrid cloud integrations with Microsoft Azure. Azure is Microsoft's cloud suite, and it includes hundreds of different options that you can use for cloud services. Linking System Center 2019 to Azure just makes good business sense. Let's talk about some of the different products that are in the System Center suite. Of course we have System Center Configuration Manager which we'll be focusing on in this course, and what this product does is it manages PCs, servers, and mobile devices such as iPhones, Android devices, and also has on-premise and cloud-based infrastructures. If we take a look at Data Protection Manager, this has to do with backing up and recovery data for workloads, applications, and services. Operations Manager monitors services, devices, and operations across your enterprise. It lets you know when some things go wrong and what to do to fix them. Another product called Orchestrator allows you to automate the creation, monitoring, and deployment of resources in Windows Azure. System Service Manager manages incidents and controls asset lifecycle management with your organization's IT service management. Service Manager is a best-practices type of product. It helps you make sure that you're setting everything up with the best security and user focus. Service Management Automation allows you to automate the creation, monitoring, and deployment of resources in your Windows Azure environment. That sounds an awful lot like Orchestrator doesn't it? The difference is that orchestrator helps you do this without any types of scripting and programming. It's very user friendly, whereas System Service Management automation allows you to customize and use programming if you'd like. System Center also includes Virtual Machine Manager, and this allows you to provision and manage resources using Hyper-V, which allows you to create virtual machines both on-premise and in the private cloud sector such as a data center. And we have Service Provider Foundation. This delivers infrastructure as a service to your clients by providing virtual machine management capabilities, which is a great feature for managing virtual machines in a multi-tenant environment. Some things to note is that Endpoint Protection is now embedded in the System Center Configuration Manager client. There's no need for a separate product in the suite now that it's integrated. We're going to focus on Configuration Manager in this course. This is the product that pushes out the management client and allows us to deploy software and operating systems, among many other things. It's also the largest of the applications in the System Center suite. By understanding the history of System Center, you can appreciate the application in its current form and see how Microsoft has developed their product over two decades. Now we can proceed with preparing and installing SCCM.