While I've talked a bit before about the differences between OpsMgr 2007 and System Center Essentials, in my earlier post on Microsoft System Center, the following two tables offer a direct comparison of the feature set between Essentials and OpsMgr and Essentials and Configuration Manager. This should give you a clear picture of the capabilities of Essentials. Remember, Essentials is limited to monitoring only 30 servers.
Features Available in Operations Manager 2007 and System Center Essentials 2007:
|
Features |
OpsMgr | Essentials | Comments |
| Management packs | X | X | |
| Monitor servers, clients, and services | X | X | |
| Management pack authoring | X | X | Essentials has a basic interface; the OpsMgr interface is more sophisticated. |
| Role-based security | X | Essentials does not include a facility for role-based administration. | |
| Multiple management servers in domain | X | X | All monitored systems must be in the same Active Directory forest. |
| Reporting | X | X (basic) | Essentials does not include a data warehouse or fixed grooming schedule (only a maximum of 37 days of report data can be stored); the Operations and Reporting databases are on the same server, and Report authoring is not supported. |
| Fault tolerance support | X | Essentials does not support database clustering of the Operations or Reporting database or clustering the Essentials management server. | |
| Connector framework | X | ||
| ACS | X | ||
| AD Integration | X | X | AD integration with Essentials consists of pushing Group Policy Objects (GPOs) and creating AD security groups. |
| PowerShell Integration | X | ||
| Web console | X |
Features Available in Configuration Manager 2007 and System Center Essentials 2007:
|
Features |
ConfigMgr | Essentials | Comments |
| Update management | X | X | |
| Software distribution | X | X | |
| Hardware and software inventory | X | X | Essentials captures approximately 30 hardware and software attributes. |
| Operating System deployment | X | ||
| Mobile device management | X | ||
| Desired configuration management | X | ||
| Branch office support | X | X (basic) | Essentials does not include site servers. |
| Network Access Protection (NAP) support | X | ||
| Wake on Local Area Network (LAN) | X |
Kerrie Meyler, MVP, MCSE, MCTS, CNA, MA, BA, is an independent consultant and trainer with over fifteen years of experience in IT. While at Microsoft in Field Technical Sales for four years she focused on infrastructure and mangement, presenting at numerous product launches. Kerrie has presented Operations Manager 2007 at TechEd 2007 and MMS 2009 and at internal Microsoft conferences, receiving company recognition and awards including a SPAR MGS award. Kerrie worked with Microsoft Learning to develop functional specifications for the original Operations Manager Microsoft courseware, 2550: Implementing Microsoft Operations Manager 2000 and did the beta teach for that course.She also participated in the alpha walkthrough for the 70-400: Configuring Microsoft System Center Operations Manager certification exam.
She is the lead author of Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 Unleashed, Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 Unleashed, and Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2007 Unleashed. Kerrie is currently developing an eBook on Operations Manager 2007 R2.
Check out an excerpt from System Center Operations Manager 2007 Unleashed, Chapter 3: Looking Inside OpsMgr.
Kerrie's latest book, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2007 Unleashed by Kerrie Meyler, Byron Holt, and Greg Ramsey has been selected as the August, 2009, Microsoft Subnet book giveaway (a $59.99 value). Check out an excerpt from System Center Configuration (SCCM) Manager 2007 Unleashed, Chapter 3: Looking Inside ConfigMgr.
Visit the Microsoft Subnet home page for giveaway details and entry forms.
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Kerrie, what about pricing
Kerrie, what about pricing between the two products? Is Essentials a lot less expensive than OpsMgr? How does that compare to ConfigMgr? Also, Microsoft seems to be positioning Systems Center Essentials as the tool to use for business Vista deployments. Can you discuss that a bit?
Thanks, Julie
Pricing is at least one article in itself!
The answer to pricing is always "it depends." It depends on your configuration. It depends on your licensing agreement with Microsoft. Microsoft posts pricing guidelines for the three products at the following web pages:
These represent starting prices for Volume Licensing, which has multiple tiers in addition to the agreement you work out with your software distributor.
Just looking at the those numbers, the initial OpsMgr license is $573 for the server. Then managed servers cost either $426 (Enterprise) or $155 (Standard) depending on what you're monitoring, and client machines are $32.
The initial ConfigMgr license is also $573 for the server. Managed servers are $426 (Enterprise) or $155 (Standard), and clients are $41.
Essentials is a little different. The server license is $2000, and each managed server (max 30) is $100, clients are $20 (max 500). The exception to the server license pricing would be if you purchase Essentials Small Network Edition $699), which is available ONLY to to Intel vPro server board owners. And if you use Essentials in conjuction with Remote Operations Manager (ROM), the Managed Services Provider (MSP) pays additional fees each month to Microsoft.
Remember, each of these products has different functionality. And while Essentials in some sense blends the other two together, it has limited capability in each area plus can only be used by small shops.
As far as what's being positioned for business Vista deployments, that would be Configuration Manager, not Essentials. This is similar to when Microsoft previously recommended using SMS to help roll out new versions of software.
Essentials does not even fully monitor Vista yet, much less help deploy it, and it does not include the OS deployment features that are part of Configuration Manager. (Sorry!)
Kerrie Meyler
Product Comparison
Hi Kerrie,
Nice explanation comparing features of Essentials 2007 and OpsMgr & ConfigMgr.
Just to clarify, you would need to purchase both OpsMgr and ConfigMgr to have a comparable product to Essentials 2007.
Gwen
The Real World is Messy: Making Sense with Essentials 2007
http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/gzierdt/default.aspx
Is Essentials always Essential?
Thanks, Gwen.
Yes, you have to purchase both OpsMgr and ConfigMgr to have a comparable product to Essentials. Although if you purchase both you actually will have a superior product - since Essentials is limited to only 30 servers and does not have all the capabilities for software distribution and inventory as ConfigMgr does, nor does it have everything thet OpsMgr does (see the tables in the article to compare the feature sets).
For a small shop (monitoring less than 30 servers), Essentials provides a nice solution. Organizations of that size typically do not have administrators available to implement all the capablities of OpsMgr and ConfigMgr, so Essentials makes operations and configuation management much easier in those environments!
Kerrie Meyler
A few more details on Essentials
I am the product manager for the Intel(R) System Management Software with Microsoft(R) System Center Essentials. I just wanted to thank you for your posts about Essentials and wanted to add one correction about the Small Network Edition version. Intel ships the Single Server Edition of Essentials with our Intel Server Boards and Systems. This is the full version of Essentials with two difference: the first this version is only licensed for a single server and the second is that we have developed a deployment assistant and custom installer for the product. This deployment assistant will help smaller customers and less experience IT staff install the pre-requisites and Essentials in about 45 minutes verses the 2 to 3 hours it normally takes. The Single Server Edition works great with Microsoft(R) Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2 and can easily be upgraded to manage up to 5 servers and 15 clients with the Small Network Edition by simply entering the license key. Intel and Microsoft are working together to bring the power of Essentials to our smaller customer by offering free single server management and the $599 upgrade to the Small Network Edition. We also can go to the Standard Edition by adding the license key to either version from Intel and scale it to the full 30 servers and 500 clients. we have more information about this offering for our small business customers at www.intel.com/go/serveressentials. This link also has information about the Intel AMT Management Pack for our vPro business clients and our new Intel Modular Server.
I hope this information helps...
Brian Johnson -- Product Manager for Intel System Management Software with Microsoft System Center Essentials 2007
Single Server Edition of Essentials and Intel
Very true. Brian - thanks for the detailed information!
Kerrie Meyler
Remote Control
Hi Kerrie,
You missed remote control in your sce versus sccm comparison.
Kim Oppalfens
Remote Control
You are correct! When Remote Control was first added to SMS, that was a big deal. Now there are many ways to do remote control and Essentials does not have it as a special feature. Essentials does has RWW (borrowed from SBS).
Kerrie Meyler