Topic last updated—June 2008

Note
The information in this topic applies only to Configuration Manager 2007 R2.

This scenario demonstrates how you can use client status reporting in Configuration Manager 2007 R2 to help monitor the status of clients in your organization.

Don Richardson is the Windows Server Administrator for Woodgrove Bank which has a Configuration Manager 2007 R2 site containing 10,000 clients. Don was responsible for the deployment of Configuration Manager 2007 in the organization. Don’s manager has asked him to produce reports detailing the success of the Configuration Manager 2007 client deployment in the organization. The reports included with Configuration Manager 2007 give an overview of deployment failure and success; however, Don discovers that the reports included in client status reporting can give a more detailed and accurate review of client health in the organization.

To implement client status reporting, Don decides on the course of action outlined in the following table.

Process Reference
  • Don reviews concepts and prerequisites for client status reporting in the Configuration Manager 2007 R2 client status reporting documentation and ensures that the computer on which he wants to install the client status reporting host meets the prerequisites.
  • Don reviews the planning documentation and uses this to designate a computer to function as the client status reporting host system.
  • Don installs client status reporting on the designated client status reporting host system.
  • After reviewing the documentation, Don then creates the client status reporting service account.
  • To use the client pulse feature of client status reporting, policy request files must be made available on the site management point. To automatically configure this, the client status reporting service account must have local administrator rights to the management point computer. Woodgrove Bank's security policies do not allow this, so Don manually configures client policy request logging on the management point.
  • Because of the number of clients in the bank's Configuration Manager 2007 site, Don is concerned that client pulse might not be able to retrieve policy request information from log files before it is overwritten. He therefore decides, after determining that the management point computer has enough free disk space, to increase the maximum log file size for policy request files.
  • Don adds the necessary permissions to the Configuration Manager 2007 site database to enable the client status reporting service account to write information to it.
  • He then reviews the information on ports required by client status reporting and works with the bank's security team to amend the company firewall policy to allow traffic on these ports.
  • Don reviews the information about reporting periods used by the client status reporting activity checks and decides to initially use the default values of 7 days.
  • Don enables the client pulse, and client ping features of client status reporting and leaves both on the default schedule to run once a day.
  • The reports for client status reporting are not automatically installed with the feature. Don installs these reports from the Configuration Manager 2007 R2 media.
  • After the client pulse, and client ping cycles are complete, Don reviews the reports generated by client status reporting and identifies a number of clients with issues preventing them from communicating with the site. Don refers back to the client deployment documentation to help him find the reasons for these failures.

See Also