System Center 2012 Configuration Manager: Initial Configuration

SCCM Post-Installation Tasks
Hello, welcome to TRAINSIGNAL. This is the System Center Configuration Manager 2012 Post-Installation Tasks lesson in the System Center 2012 Configuration Manager training course. In this lesson, you'll learn about the role of the management point and the distribution point as they were created during the System Center Configuration Manager installation process. You'll also learn about the role of what are called the distribution point groups, a new entity in Configuration Manager 2012. You'll also learn about the role that boundaries and boundary groups play, in your Configuration Manager environment, and we're going to wrap this lesson up by reviewing other site settings that are important to understand before you move forward in your administrative journey. Specifically in this lesson, you're going to learn that before you start using Configuration Manager, there's some initial configuration that's necessary in order to get things in place in a way that makes sense. You'll also learn about some of the defaults that were created when you first installed Configuration Manager so that you know how things are going to operate. And there's some clear business goals as well, that you're going to find as a part of this lesson. First of all, to continue the Configuration Manager deployments, we want to get this product up and running for Global Mantics. We want to make sure we perform well the foundational configuration steps, to make sure that we have a solid foundation on which to operate in the future. And make sure we understand some new efficiency opportunities that are available in Configuration Manager 2012.

Managing Client Settings
Hello, welcome to TrainSignal. This is the Managing Client Settings lesson in the System Center 2012 Configuration Manager training course. We'll start this lesson by talking about some changes that are taking place in the Client Settings arena since the days of old of Configuration Manager. In other words, what's new? Next, we'll talk about Managing Client Settings and Exploring Client Settings and Options. We'll take a look at some of the client settings that are necessary for Globomantics to complete their work. By the end of this lesson, you'll understand the various ways by which Configuration Manager Clients can be managed and you'll understand the role of the clients settings play in that process. From a business goals' perspective, you'll learn how to best manage clients for Globomantics. And you'll be able to leverage this knowledge to improve Globomantics desktop operations. So, what are client settings? Well they're centrally configurable options that allow the administrator to granularly control how clients operate in the Configuration Manager environments. They control anything and everything to do with a client.

SCCM Client Deployment and Troubleshooting
Hello, welcome to TrainSignal. This is the System Center Configuration Manager Client Deployment andTroubleshooting lesson, in the System Center 2012 Configuration Manager training course. In this lesson, we're going to talk about the client, the software that is installed on end points to make sure that it can be managed with Configuration Manager. To that end, we'll start with a discussion on the client itself, and the operating systems with which it's compatible. Included in this discussion will be embedded operating systems, such as those found on some thin clients. Then we'll spend some time talking about client requirements and some additional client requirements, because there are a few, and then we'll discuss four ways by which the client can be deployed, and we'll actually perform two of these methods in this lesson. We'll talk about some additional considerations that you should keep in mind as you deploy the client, and we'll wrap things up with a look at how you can monitor and troubleshoot client deployments, and this will actually give you some insight into some general troubleshooting topics in Configuration Manager itself. You're going to learn quite a bit in this lesson. Really the client is the piece that really has to get put out there before you can start truly using Configuration Manager. You'll learn what kinds of systems are supported by Configuration Manager clients. You'll learn about the methods by which the client can be installed, and how to find and use Configuration Manager log files, as well as the CM trace tool, which makes it much, much easier to read log files produced by Configuration Manager. From a business goals perspective, the goal here is to get all clients brought into the System Center Configuration Manager fold, and into SCCM management.

Managing SCCM Clients
Hello, welcome to TrainSignal. This is the Managing Configuration Manager Clients lesson in the System Center 2012 Configuration Manager training course. This lesson is chockful of good stuff. We're going to start by talking about the client properties that are available once you have a client installed, basically once you've installed the System Center Configuration Manager Client to an endpoint, what kind of properties are available in the Configuration Manager console. Next, we'll talk about some tasks that can be initiated from the server console to manage those clients. From there, we'll talk about how you can monitor client health and how you can then block and unblock clients if you have a need to do so. Next up, managing user device affinity, quickly followed by managing conflicting client records. After that, we'll move on to exploring some local client options, things you can do actually on the client itself once the Configuration Manager Client is deployed. And we're going to wrap this lesson up with a look at a third-party tool called Right-Click Tools. In my opinion, it's one of the absolute best add-ins that's available for Configuration Manager. In this lesson, you're going to learn about some of the direct management benefits that come once the Configuration Manager Client has been deployed. You'll also learn to see whether or not a client agent is healthy. And you'll learn how to initiate specific actions from a client itself, specifically, you'll learn how to initiate a policy refresh cycle which will update the policy on the client more quickly than it would otherwise happen. From a business goals perspective, once you have the client installed, you can improve overall efficiency by centrally managing client computers. No longer do you have to go out to individual computers physically and work on them. You can do so from the centralized Configuration Manager console.

Managing Collections
Hello. Welcome to TrainSignal. This is the managing collections lesson in the System Center 2012 Configuration Manager training course. We'll jump right into this lesson with a discussion about the built-in collections that are available in Configuration Manager and from there we'll move on to talk about what's new with regard to collections in Configuration Manager 2012. Next, you'll learn how to create your very own collections, which is an activity you'll definitely want to pay attention to as it's definitely one of the most important things you'll end up doing in Configuration Manager. Once collections are created, we need to learn how to use and manage those collections. Which just happens to be the next topic in this lesson. And we'll wrap up with a discussion about some action items that we'll take specifically for Globomantics. In this lesson, you'll learn that collections are a true cornerstone element in Configuration Manager, and that they've undergone some significant improvements in Configuration Manager 2012. They make it easier to more granularly manage smaller groups of computers. For example, suppose you have 10, 000 computers in your environment and you want to deploy software to just the marketing computers. You can create a collection that has just the 30 marketing computers in it, and then deploy that software based on that collection membership. From a business goal's perspective, collections help you further improve efficiency because you now have the ability to manage groups of computers as a subset of the whole environment. And as I mentioned before there was that marketing example. This can help you further streamline the best top management activities and further reduce associated costs.

Reporting
Hello, welcome to TrainSignal. This is the Reporting lesson in the System Center 2012 Configuration Manager training course. In this lesson you'll learn how to add powerful reporting capability to your configuration manager environment. We'll start by talking about some reporting facts and security that are available once you've added the reporting to your environment. And you'll learn how to write your own reports, learn about some other Report Management options, and then learn to create what are called Report Subscriptions. In this lesson you're going to learn that reporting is an additional way by which you as an administrator can better understand the status of what's going on in your Configuration Manager Environment. And you'll learn how to deploy reporting into your Configuration Manager Environment. From a business goals perspective reporting adds a lot. Including faster resolution to problems. After all, with more information about how the environment is operating, the quicker an administrator can get to a full resolution. And with reporting you can get quick details about current inventory. There's a whole lot of reports that are available in Configuration Manager that can help you do your job as an administrator even better.