14 DAY TRIAL // Customers looking to deploy System Center Essentials 2010 and in need of some help when it comes down to supporting the product, can now access a free Resource Kit from Microsoft. The System Center Essentials 2010 Resource Kit will simplify the work IT administrators will need to do for the adoption of System Center Essentials 2010, and future management. The resource kit can be accessed free of charge on the Microsoft Download Center.
Customers that will decide to leverage the System Center Essentials 2010 Resource Kit will be able to take advantage of a comprehensive collection of tools put together by Microsoft. There are no less than 6 tool packaged in the toolkit, such as Essentials Server Migration Advisor; Published Software Certificate Update Tool; Setup Log Parser; Maintenance Mode Management Pack; Computer Group Repair Tool and Essentials Server Cleanup Tool. Customers will be able to access a description of each tool below, as offered by the software giant.
Microsoft released System Center Essentials 2010 to manufacturing in April 2010, alongside Data Protection Manager 2010. Subsequently, in May 2010, the Redmond company started allowing customers to purchase both System Center Essentials 2010 and Data Protection Manager 2010, and to leverage the advances introduced to its lineup of Windows data-protection offerings.
Here are the contents of the System Center Essentials 2010 Resource Kit:
“- Essentials Server Migration Advisor - You can use this tool to move an Essentials 2010 management server installation to a different server. The tool backs up the installation on the source server and restores it on the target server.
- Published Software Certificate Update Tool - The published software certificate update tool removes the existing software publishing certificate from the Essentials 2010 or Essentials 2007 management server and all managed computers, generates a new certificate, deploys the certificate to managed computers, and signs all locally published content with the new certificate.
- Setup Log Parser - When you install System Center Essentials 2010, Setup creates SCESetupWizard.log and a set of related log files, depending on the features you chose to install, such as SQL Server, Reporting, and Virtualization Management. If installation fails, you can use this tool to get an easy-to-read-report that contains enough information to determine if the installation was successful and to highlight any issues.
- Maintenance Mode Management Pack - System Center Essentials 2010 maintenance mode does not provide a way to schedule the maintenance mode start time to begin at a future time. Use this tool if you want to schedule a group of computers to enter maintenance mode at a fixed time in the future. For example, you may want to schedule a group of computers to be in maintenance mode every Friday and Saturday night at 11:00PM for a duration of three hours.
- Computer Group Repair Tool - The computer group repair tool identifies and repairs broken relationships between System Center Operations Manager computer groups and their corresponding Windows Server Update Service (WSUS) computer groups.
- Essentials Server Cleanup Tool - After an installation failure, you can run the Essentials Server Cleanup Tool to clean out files left over from the failed installation and restore the computer to a clear, preinstallation state so that you can start the installation over again. Note that the tool removes existing Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) certificates from the computer.”
System Center Essentials 2010 Resource Kit is available for download here.
System Center Essentials 2010 RTM is available for download here.
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