Getting the most out of Microsoft SCCM with SysTrack

Managing large computing environments can be a real challenge for any IT administrator. Simple tasks such as ensuring every user has the latest version of Microsoft Excel can cause a great deal of headaches. A small company IT staff, with maybe 10 or 20 users, can simply check each employee’s device to see which version of an application they’re running. But what do you do when there are 100 users? Or 1,000 users? Time simply won’t permit physically checking devices and talking with each user (unless you enjoy working around the clock).

What is Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager?

Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager is a popular choice for the large company IT administrator. SCCM is ideal for managing a large environment of end-points, keeping software up-to-date, setting security policies, deploying configurations and polices, and much more. Of course, just because your software is running the latest version doesn’t mean your environment is efficiently organized and getting the best value it could. Any IT worker worth their salt is looking for areas where cost savings can be realized. A great way to identify IT cost savings is to gain insight into how the environment you manage with SCCM is actually being utilized. Are all of those Microsoft Office instances you deployed actually being used? Does each user have all of the applications they need to be effective at their job? Are there unmanaged applications being used that need to be accounted for and supported? Having a detailed, reliable software inventory can go a long way in the IT world.

Software rationalization based on actual usage data can ensure you’re not wasting money on licenses that are going unused and that each user has exactly the right software. Lakeside Software’s core product, SysTrack, is designed to answer these types of questions for you. Using agent-based methodology SysTrack provides detailed information from the individual user level all the way up to enterprise level trends. The agent-based design allows for an extremely granular view of the data when you need it as well as a broad overview of the enterprise as a whole when you want to look at trends. Don’t bother with setting up perfmon counters or time consuming, complicated monitoring tools – SysTrack is simple to install and set up and will provide you with the IT intelligence you need right out of the box.

Understanding user needs based on how they are interacting with the current environment allows you to rationalize software deployments and create images that make sense and save on unnecessary costs. SysTrack provides a clear understanding of which applications are being used by each user, how much they are using those applications, and even how much productivity is being impacted by poor performance. All of the in-depth information available to you through SysTrack can greatly reduce costs from saving software licenses that may go unused, reduced planning time for image creation, and reduced support time.

There are a lot of options available to today’s IT administrator for monitoring and managing their environment. Lakeside has put a lot of time into making sure SysTrack covers all of your IT intelligence needs and helps reduce the costs associated with and the time required to keep your environment efficient and running smoothly. Find out how to take the guesswork out of IT decisions (and eliminate the headache of parsing log files to troubleshoot) by checking out the SysTrack Product Suite.