System Center Essentials 2007 introduces a unified management console for managing your IT environment. The console runs on the Management Server and provides access to all Essentials 2007 features and data.
To facilitate your management tasks, the Essentials 2007 console displays the following panes:
- Navigation pane
- Views pane
- Details pane
- Actions pane
Navigation Pane
This pane is in the lower-left section of the console and is usually the first pane you use for navigation in the console. It provides the entry point for all the Essentials 2007 features.
The Navigation pane contains the following buttons:
- Computers—Provides access to the Computers Overview pane
for computer and computer groups management, inventory, update
management, and software deployment. For detailed information about
the functionality provided by this navigation button, see Computers Navigation
Button in the System Center Essentials Console.
- Monitoring—Provides access to the Monitoring
Overview pane, which is used for monitoring objects. For
detailed information about the functionality provided by this
navigation button, see Monitoring Navigation
Button in the System Center Essentials Console.
- Updates—Provides access to the Updates
Overview pane, which is used for software update management.
For detailed information about the functionality provided by this
navigation button, see Updates Navigation
Button in the System Center Essentials Console.
- Software—Provides access to the Software Overview
pane, which is used for software deployment. For detailed
information about the functionality provided by this navigation
button, see Software Navigation
Button in the System Center Essentials Console.
- Authoring—Provides access to the Authoring
Overview pane, which is used for customization and
configuration of Essentials 2007 monitoring settings. For
example, you can customize settings for Management Pack groups,
Management Packs, Distributed Application Modeling, and other
monitoring configurations. For detailed information about the
functionality provided by this navigation button, see Authoring Navigation
Button in the System Center Essentials Console.
- Administration—Provides access to the Administration
Overview pane, which is used for administrative tasks such as
device management and provides access to Essentials 2007
settings for features that are set up in the initial configuration
wizards. For detailed information about the functionality provided
by this navigation button, see Administration
Navigation Button in the System Center Essentials Console.
- Reporting—Provides access to the Reporting
Overview pane, which lists the Essentials 2007 reports
that you can run to view various types of information. For detailed
information about the functionality provided by this navigation
button, see Reporting Navigation
Button in the System Center Essentials Console.
Views Pane
This pane is located in the upper central section of the Essentials 2007 console. It displays overview panes, reports, and lists of objects as appropriate for the selected item in the navigation pane. You can use the Views pane to create custom views, and in some views you can filter the object lists based on your defined criteria.
Details Pane
This pane is located in the lower central section of the Essentials 2007 console. This pane displays specific details of objects that have been selected in the Views pane, such as alert details or computer inventory.
Actions Pane
This pane is located on the right section of the Essentials 2007 console. It displays tasks and actions appropriate to items that have been selected in other panes.