SMS

[Gatt]

Anyone got any experience of SMS 2003?
Looking at the possibilty of deploying it in Moorside, but other than installing it I dont know what to do to get it working..

[john]

I always felt it a bit overkill in my opinion. If you have WSUS setup (and the next version solves a lot of our niggles such as "dead" computers, expired updates, extra language deletion etc, as well as adding a lot more MS products into its supporting scope ) and a well setup set of GPOs, then SMS is not that exciting to a school really.

Also its just another set of CALs to buy, so you would then have Server, Exchange, SMS and possibly MOM and SMS, so before you know it your CAL'd up to the roof and fed up of them.

[GrumbleDook]

You can achieve similar sort of results to SMS / MOM through clever use of WMI and SNMP.

The training session that Task-IT layed of for EduGeek members earlier in the year covered some of this ... and there are some good freeware / shareware tools for this.

However ... SMS has it's place. For those with schools with a lot of mobile users it can be very handy. For those schools that have decided to try new things and be a bit more innovative in what they allow staff to do with laptops ... it can be a blessing.

But ... and it is a big but ... the same way setting up a domain from scratch takes planning and preparation ... AD with SMS / MOM takes even more time. And as john has pointed out there is also a cost involved with CALs.

I would not say all schools should use it, but I would never say schools should never use it. Horses for courses ... as the saying goes.