Experience under
review
When I tell people in
my professional circle that I have been working with Microsoft System
Management Server (SMS) since 1996 with version 1.1, it is neither to
intimidate nor to show off, but I hope it comes with a sense of authority that I
have an idea of what I am talking about. This knowledge has defined the
majority of my professional career.
Experience is a good
thing and the SMS we knew then has gone through many name changes and version
iterations, features added on, deprecated, evolving and maybe even transmogrifying
into a monster of client, user, device, application, and data management
proportions.
It became System
Center Configuration Manager which we termed SCCM that the professionals called
ConfigMgr, then last year, the name changed to Endpoint Configuration Manager, but
we have the acronym MEMCM to play with. No questions to that apart from the
fact that our Microsoft development and support backchannels prefer it that
way and on Twitter, that is the hashtag they will respond too. [Wikipedia:
Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager]
Exchanging ideas for
improvement
We have a large and
active community of administrators and architects who not only share ideas,
solutions, and tips, we are also the best innovation resource for getting
features implemented in the product, some of which I have contributed to going
back over 15 years.
That I know how the
product works does not mean I am the apostle of product functionality or
technology, I am constantly looking for new ideas and perspectives, scenarios
others have encountered that they have applied novel solutions to and shared
with our community.
I have a test lab at
home running on an extensive setup of virtual machines on which I try out ideas
and gain conversance with the new features. Nothing works as good as having an
issue at work and me logging on to my home network to check things out either
to affirm or dispute issues.
Going back to the
roots
Yet, more pertinently
is the need for someone with my experience to find time to go back over the
fundamentals and the essentials. It is important to never assume that the primers
or introductions cannot contain new and useful information to help reinforce or
finally, debunk a premise that was getting the prominence of gospel truth until
the times and changes obviated that assertion.
For my weekend
reading, I found a 346-page manual of how to setup MEMCM from scratch, I know a
lot of it, and I and still learn much more, I am open to new knowledge that
would give my expertise more heft. The job of learning never ends and like I
sometimes say, that is a good thing.
