Hi There, I've been trying to get System Center Essentials 2010 and 2007 to work in the same fashion as N-Able (being an I.T. provider) but i always hit this problem: A) if i install System Center Essentials at a data center and i want to monitor multiple small businesses at remote locations with different domains, the agents are unable to communicate over the internet (seems like this only works in a local environment on-site and on 1 domain only). Is it me or does this seem a bit restrictive... B) Like above, I cannot monitor multiple client's domains, it seems like you have to have System Center Essentials on-site and seems it must be on the same domain. It would be great if some can shed some light on this because i am under the impression that System Center Essentials is an IT network monitoring and system management tool like N-Able. I would like to keep everything within the microsoft family as much as possible. Any help is greatly appreciated. P.S. I found the same issue with all the System Center products (including Continous Data Management)MattLok

Hello MattLok, Thanks for choosing Microsoft System Center Essentials. Firstly, I would suggest you the following article: Supported Topologies and Performance Guidance for System Center Essentials 2010 http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb422797.aspx SCE 2010 server can manage computers in a trusted domain or in a workgroup. It can NOT manage the computers in an untrusted domain (unless this is a workgroup). So, if you need to manage the computers in multiple domains, make sure all the domains must be trusted by the domain in which SCE server installed. Thanks, Yog Li -- Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Hi Yog Li, Thanks for the reply. I guess in short SCE2010 cannot monitor systems over the internet (untrusted). So if i am inturpreting this right, the co-located data center will need to create a VPN tunnel to each customer's remote site on multiple domains [each customer site representing a unique domain/forest] which the domains must be trusted/joined to the same forest or trust relationship in order for SCE 2010 to work. ThanksMattLok

Hi Matt, You are correct. SCE is only designed for the IT system administrator in a medium-sized organization. In your scenario, you should choose System Center Operations Manager(SCOM) to meet the requirement. For more information about SCOM: System Center Operations Manager http://technet.microsoft.com/systemcenter/om/default.aspx Thanks,Yog Li -- Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.