When planning your SMS hierarchy, consider a top-down, umbrella-like support structure. Locate most of the SMS expertise at the top of the umbrella, and let it drip down from there. Then, when a lower-level employee resigns, a higher-level, SMS-proficient technician can cover the site until you train or hire a replacement. To roll out SMS, you first install a primary site server, which maintains information for the entire SMS hierarchy. Below the primary site server, you distribute child site servers; below them, for locations with few employees, you install secondary site servers. Thus, if you use the umbrella support structure I described, you're actually following the SMS design model.
If SMS is the first systems-managementtype application your company has implemented, you might need to add some IT staff members to manage it. For most organizations, though, SMS just changes how the existing IT staff works by improving efficiency and delegation of tasks.
The Planning Imperative
SMS is a complete systems-management solution that can help large companies lower the cost of owning computer equipment and software and manage these resources more efficiently. Reading the SMS Administrator's Guide and visiting Microsoft's SMS Web site (http://www.microsoft.com/smsmgmt/default.asp) doesn't tell you everything you need to know to successfully implement this robust service. A consultant can help you plan and deploy SMS, but you need to choose your consultant carefully and make sure that he or she and you review all the hidden factors that might affect your SMS deployment—and determine during the planning phase how to address them. Overplanning for SMS is definitely the best way to ensure success.
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thanks
Dave November 20, 2001