System Center Configuration Manager Client Health – Toolset to identify and remediate client issues

Introduction

I get asked by a lot of customers “How can we reduce the amount of time spent on manually troubleshooting agents, correctly identify what is wrong with the systems, quickly and automatically remediate the issues on the systems”?

Even though we do have a built-in check for the client that runs daily, as described here, that may not be enough for most Administrators.

The Solution

The System Center Configuration Manager Client Health (CMCH) solution has been created within Microsoft by PFE’s to address the need that has been identified by engineers for more expansive checksremediation.

The CMCH solution provides years of client health knowledge focused on proactive monitoring and automated remediation to ensure that clients are fully functional while reducing risks and increasing reliability. The framework is fully customizable and built with remediation in mind.

The CMCH solution contains different components for System Center Configuration Manager such as:

  • Custom Collections
  • Configuration Baseline
  • Configuration Items (CIs)
  • Custom Client Health reports

The CMCH toolset is supported on Configuration Manager Current Branch and Configuration Manager 2012/2012 R2 with the latest Service Pack.

Key Features and Benefits of CMCH include:

  • a Powerful remediation agent and approximately 26 Client Health focused Configuration Items.

In all, there are 30+ Client Component issues and 37+ Operating System dependency issues that are addressed.

Detailed trending analysis identifies systems that are recently confirmed to be on the network but remain unhealthy. The service has a proven track record for scalability and is leveraged in hierarchies with over 200,000 clients.

Detailed trending analysis identifies systems that are recently confirmed to be on the network but remain unhealthy.

Technical Highlights

• Automatic Remediation through the PFE Remediation script and various remediation programs

• Leverage collections to easily identify issues and target resolutions

• Trending reports and dashboards

• Low Network and Database Footprint

• Right-Click Tools for the Solution

Right-Click tools

Baseline Filtering Collections

Here we start filtering out noise, to get the PFE Baseline that we use for all additional checks

Client Components

OS Dependency Rules

Custom Configuration Items

Customisation of the CollectionsCI’s are performed by the PFE during the Delivery, to match the customer’s environment (ex: Contoso Antivirus)

One Main Dashboard

Conclusion

The Introduction of this solution has allowed SCCM Administrators to more effectively identify, remediate and report on client health issues.

How can I get this into my SCCM environment?

If you are a Microsoft Premier customer please reach out to your TAMs for delivery questions!!

This delivery can be delivered remotely to customers, and still includes updates for 12 months after the delivery has taken place. (Any app updates, CI script updates etc)

4 thoughts on “System Center Configuration Manager Client Health – Toolset to identify and remediate client issues

  1. Hi Thank you for you great post.

    But wasn’t clear to me. This solution is available worldwide just asking to my TAM? The only requirement is have a valid Premier Support?

    1. Hi Daniel.

      Yes this is a worldwide delivery. You can reach out to your TAM, whom can contact me if you would like a quick 30 minute call to provide a bit more depth about the solution perhaps.

      1. Thanks for this post – really neat.

        This has piqued my interest but what I am not clear on is whether or not a [4-day] System Center Client Health engagement is required in order to get access to this solution. Could you weigh in on this and let me know either way? If it’s not required, perhaps you and my TAM can have a tête-à-tête to perhaps fill in some gaps 🙂

      2. Hi Julius

        Yes, this is part of the 4-day delivery. The reason being that we spend the time, customizing this to your environment and ensuring that the Data is flowing from the clients etc.

        I am happy to have a call with you and the TAM to discuss this in a bit more detail if you so wish.

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