Using ConfigMgr 2007 Desired Configuration Management

New release of CP Studio helps with creating and managing configuration packs

DCM is one of the new features of Configuration Manager 2007. Using DCM enables you to monitor, report on, and take action regarding the configuration of your managed systems. This enables you to monitor regulatory compliance, change verification, configuration drift, and time to resolution. Configuration baselines are used to group configuration items, which are assigned using rules.

Baselines are assigned to collections. As collections contain systems, assigning a baseline to a collection triggers its evaluation against that set of systems. The settings and values defined in each configuration item in a baseline are compared against the current configuration of the systems in the collection, according to the evaluation schedule for that baseline.

These baselines are grouped together in what is known as configuration packs (CPs), which are downloadable from Microsoft's System Center Configuration Manager 2007 Configuration Pack Catalog at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/configmgr/cc462788.aspx.

You can also write your own configuration packs. There are several approaches to this:

• Using the ConfigMgr console
• Using an XML format such as SML or DCM Digest
• Using or a third party tool such as CP Studio

CP Studio is written by Silect Software, the same folks who wrote MP Studio for Operations Manager 2007, and allows you to author outside of the console without having to work directly with XML. CP Studio also lets you create configuration data from an existing system using a profiling process that converts the current state of the system into a baseline. This enables you to configure a system and use CP Studio to create a baseline matching that configuration. After importing the created baseline into DCM, you can easily verify all your systems are identically configured.

Last week Silect Software released version 2 of their CP Studio tool. Version 2 adds configuration pack version control and the ability to simulate implementing a configuration pack into a ConfigMgr environment (without actually deploying it). This allows you to tune the CP without getting non-compliance alerts while testing.

For more information on CP Studio, see www.silect.com.

For additional information on DCM, check out Chapter 16 of System Center Configuration Manager 2007 Unleashed. This book will be available in early August, and can be preordered from Amazon.com at http://tinyurl.com/5gtlkg.

• Microsoft
• ConfigMgr
• Configuration Manager 2007
• CP Studio
• DCM
• Desired Configuration Management
• SCCM 2007