What this book covers

Chapter 1, Designing a System Center 2012 Configuration Manager Infrastructure, covers ways to reduce the drag on primary sites to help keep you on just one site if possible, such as installing SQL to be as efficient as possible and how to offload roles.

Chapter 2, Deploying Windows 7 with Operating System Deployment, shows you how to create an image and deploy it, taking into consideration the need to manage drivers or migrate user data.

Chapter 3, Deploying Applications and Software Updates, covers applications and patching, monitoring deployments, and use of the new Software Center and Application Catalog.

Chapter 4, Managing Compliance Settings, covers how to create configuration items, put them into baselines and deploy them, and then monitor computers for compliance to those baselines with e-mailed drift reports.

Chapter 5, Managing Sites, details ways to configure and manage sites, set up discovery tasks to find systems, and how to set up security roles and scopes for other admins.

Chapter 6, Managing Clients, covers installation of the CM client on systems, how to manage and monitor the health of that client, and how to manage power on those clients.

Chapter 7, Managing Inventory, details setup and usage of the various inventory methods of CM12 as well as metering of software usage.

Chapter 8, Managing Reports and Queries, walks you through Reporting Services installation, building queries for reports, and editing and creating reports.