HiWe are looking at using SCE or SCCM and need some advice which is best for us.We are a high school running 3 domains, initially we would manage one domain and then roll out to the others at a later date. Clients are a mixture of XP pro and Vista Business (and Windows 7 once testing iscomplete), Severs are 2003 R2 and 2008.there isnt ahuge number of client machines (110 + 175 + 30)although we have a large number of user acounts so the number limits of SCE wouldnt affect us. There is also a small amount of virtual machines and we are looking at implementing MDOP to take advantage of app-v etc.We have to be able to rebuild Clients quickly and deploy software as required easily.We are using WDS and MS Deployment Toolkit for client rebuilds and are looking at SCE or SCCM for software deployment - updates are currently controled by WSUS and GPO.Health monitoring and reporting will obviously help greatly. Is there anything hugely better in SCCM as regards software deployment and is there integration with WDS to make the extra cost of SCCM worthwhile over SCE or will it be complete overkill?I know its hard to give a definitive answer but some guidance from those with experience will be greatly appreciated.

Hi, >We are a high school running 3 domains, initially we would manage one domain and then roll out to the others at a later date. SCE can discover and deploy clients in only one domain, for the computers in other domain, they will be managed as workgroup client. >Clients are a mixture of XP pro and Vista Business (and Windows 7 once testing iscomplete) For monitoring and managing Windows 7 clients, please wait for the release of SCE V2 and SCCM SP2. For Update deployment, both SCE and SCCM can do it well, they will take over the control of WSUS, and use SCE or SCCM console to manage updates. For client Monitoring, SCE can do it better than SCCM, we have many monitors included in Managemeng Pack for corresponding proudcts. For reporting, SCE has some basic reports by default, but custom report is not supported in SCE which you can do it in SCCM. If you are intersted in both monitoring and update deployment, SCE will be better If your first priority is OS deployment, getting reports, software deployment, then using SCCM will be good choice.

Thanks for your help very usefull information.Looks like SCCM is the favourite. is it possible for them to run alongside each other (eval downloads)?