I am looking at SCE as a replacement to Kaseya. We have 4 locations and some laptops that travel for 2 to 3 weeks at a time. The user's generally VPN every day, but I am wandering if patch management and other features are available for for managing the laptops that are out in the field. Figured I would ask before I wasted time publishing ports, etc. We are also considering an FCE server which I have seen some special config notes on in the forum notes already. Just trying to do my homework before starting the trial. Our IT Support provider is going to start using MOM. They currently have Kaseya deployed to help me manage our infrastructure. They think MOM can control my SCE along with their other clients networks. If anyone has done this or has any input it is greatly appreciated.

Hi Mathew, I think SCE is a good choice, SCE is a new management solution in the System Center family of IT systems management products. Essentials is specifically designed for IT professionals working in midsize businesses who often face IT challenges similar to those of larger enterprisestroubleshooting end user problems, automating management tasks, managing multiple systems, and diagnosing and resolving IT problems. As you have VPN links betweem your locations, it's supported for clients to get the updates from SCE in different locations. Also,Microsoft provide a solution called Remote operations Manager, Remote Operations Manager takes advantage of the technology provided in System Center Operations Manager 2007 and connects to System Center Essentials 2007 at the customer site for monitoring, reporting, update management, software distribution and inventory. You can setup a SCOM server on your IT support provider site, and setup SCE on your different site location, ROM works by configuring a SCE server to be Gateway server for an SCOM environment, For more information about ROM, please visit the this website: https://partner.microsoft.com/global/productssolutions/servers/systemcenter/remoteoperationsmanager As SCE is designed for midsize environment, if your environmne is a complicated one(more than one domian, >500 clients), I'd like to suggest you use SCOM as the monitoing server and SCCM/SMS as a patch management and client management server. You can download SCE SP1 trail version or SCE SP1 VHD image to test it in your lab environment: Download details: System Center Essentials 2007 SP1Eval http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=246DF207-F051-47C3-BD64-C9072281C3C8&displaylang=en Download details: System Center Essentials 2007 SP1 VHD http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=E6FC3117-48C5-4FD1-A3D2-927EAB397373&displaylang=en If you have any other question about SCE(Deployment, installation, operations), please feel free to open new thread in SCE forum. More information about SCE: System Center Essentials 2007 (SCE) Midsize Unified IT Management Software http://www.microsoft.com/Systemcenter/essentials/en/us/default.aspx Hope this helps.

Determining if Essentials is right for your situation does require answering a few key questions. I have tried to outline some of these in the following post. Job Aid: Is System Center Essentials 2007 right for my organization? (Self Survey) Pete Zerger, MVP-OpsMgr and SCE | http://www.systemcentercentral.com