1. © 2012 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

2. System Center 2012 Configuration Manager Concepts & Administration Module 5: Collections and Queries Premier Field Engineer Microsoft Your Name

3. Conditions and Terms of Use This training package is proprietary and confidential, and is intended only for uses described in the training materials. Content and software is provided to you under a Non-Disclosure Agreement and cannot be distributed. Copying or disclosing all or any portion of the content and/or software included in such packages is strictly prohibited. The contents of this package are for informational and training purposes only and are provided "as is" without warranty of any kind, whether express or implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non- infringement. Training package content, including URLs and other Internet Web site references, is subject to change without notice. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, the content should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information presented after the date of publication. Unless otherwise noted, the companies, organizations, products, domain names, e-mail addresses, logos, people, places, and events depicted herein are fictitious, and no association with any real company, organization, product, domain name, e-mail address, logo, person, place, or event is intended or should be inferred. Microsoft may have patents, patent applications, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property rights covering subject matter in this document. Except as expressly provided in written license agreement from Microsoft, the furnishing of this document does not give you any license to these patents, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property. Complying with all applicable copyright laws is the responsibility of the user. Without limiting the rights under copyright, no part of this document may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), or for any purpose, without the express written permission of Microsoft Corporation. For more information, see Use of Microsoft Copyrighted Content at http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/permissions/ http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/permissions/ Microsoft®, Internet Explorer®, and Windows® are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Other Microsoft products mentioned herein may be either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners. Copyright and Trademarks © 2012 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft Confidential

4. Overview Define and understand the use of Collections and Queries Learn how to create Collections and Queries Understand different management tasks that can be performed on User and Device Collections Understand different properties available for User and Device Collections Understand the use of Maintenance Windows Microsoft Confidential 3

5. Objective In this module you will: Review What is new in Collections in System Center 2012 Configuration Manager Learn how to create Collections and Queries Understand Collection properties, operation and maintenance of Collections Understand Maintenance Windows Look at the difference between Collections and Queries and when to use Queries versus Collections Understand Configuration Manager and logs related to Collections and Queries Microsoft Confidential 4

6. About Collections Collections represent logical groupings of resources: Users or Devices Collections are used for Application Management Deploying Compliance settings Installing Software Updates Managing groups of Client settings Role-based Administration Configuration Manager uses WMI query language to retrieve data from the database to populate Collections and Queries Microsoft Confidential 5

7. What is New in Collections in System Center 2012 Configuration Manager? Microsoft Confidential 6 FeatureDescription User Collections and Device Collections nodes User resources and device resources cannot be part of same collection Folder structure replaces Sub collectionsYou can create folders and subfolders to organize collections Include rules and Exclude rules You can include or exclude the contents of another collection from a specified collection You can use include rules to progressively increase the membership of a collection (ex. for phased deployments) Continued….

8. What is New in Collections in System Center 2012 Configuration Manager? (continued) Microsoft Confidential 7 FeatureDescription Incremental collection member evaluation Periodically scans for only new or changed resources from the previous collection evaluation and updates a collections membership with only these resources, independent of a full collection evaluation (Increment interval is configurable via Maintenance task) Migration supportOption to migrate Collections from Configuration Manager 2007 Role-based administration security scopes Collections can be used to limit access to System Center 2012 Configuration Manager objects Continued….

9. What is New in Collections in System Center 2012 Configuration Manager? (continued) Microsoft Confidential 8 FeatureDescription Collection limitingAll collections must be limited to another collection. When you create a collection, you must specify a limiting collection New option to Import collectionsYou can export/import from one Configuration Manager site into another Configuration Manager site

10. Working with Collections Default Collections added by Configuration Manager All Users and User Groups All Desktops and Server Clients All Mobile Devices All Systems All Unknown Computers Note: With SP1 the built-in collections are now read-only and cannot be modified Configuration Manager Collections contain one or more rules that control the membership of the Collection. Four rule types are supported Direct Rule Query Rule Include Rule Exclude Rule Microsoft Confidential 9 Continued….

11. Working with Collections (continued) Direct Rule Gives direct control over which resources should be members of the collection Resources must have been discovered by Configuration Manager before they can be added Has higher administrative overhead than query collections Requires manual intervention to make membership changes Based on ResourceID property from discovery tables Collection membership is static Query Rule Query Rule dynamically updates the membership Query Rule is evaluated on a schedule by Configuration Manager Microsoft Confidential 10

12. Working with Collections (continued) Include Rule Ability to include members of another collection Membership of the current collection will be updated on a schedule when members of include collection change Exclude Rule Ability to exclude members of another collection Membership of the current collection will be updated on a schedule when members of include collection change Exclude takes precedence Microsoft Confidential 11

13. Management Actions on Collections Microsoft Confidential 12 Device Collection User Collection

14. Demonstration Microsoft Confidential 13 Walk though all Management Actions on Collections

15. Collection Properties Microsoft Confidential 14 Device Collection User Collection

16. Demonstration Microsoft Confidential 15 Walk though properties of Device and Users collections

17. Maintenance Windows Microsoft Confidential 16 Maintenance Windows When a client computer has a maintenance window policy set, the following evaluation is made before an advertised program is launched by Configuration Manager 16 Available time left in the Maintenance Window (>=) the Maximum allowed run time (+) the Advertised Programs Client Agent countdown duration? The advertised program will run Clients download content outside of Maintenance Windows when deployments are configured to download and run locally Policy evaluated on the Client Configuration Manager will wait until the next scheduled maintenance window in which there is sufficient time available. Yes No

18. Maintenance Windows Microsoft Confidential 17 Must have a duration of less than 24 hours Multiple Maintenance Windows If the Maintenance Windows do not overlap, they are treated as two independent Maintenance Windows If the Maintenance Windows overlap, they are treated as a single Maintenance Window encompassing the time period covered by both Maintenance Windows When a user initiates an installation from Software Center, the Maintenance Window is ignored

19. Collections and Queries Microsoft Confidential 18 CollectionsQueries Attributes displayed under collection results is static and cannot be changed Attributes displayed under query results are dynamic, you can pick and choose what attributes you want to display Cannot validate if the membership rule is correct by viewing the results set Can easily validate the membership rule by viewing the results set Each collection has an associated table with snapshot of the resources that fits the membership rule Queries just stores the definition of the query Collections can be created against only a handful of object types (3 object types) Query can be created against a larger number of object types (26 object types) Large number of collections updating on a scheduled basis can generate a processing load on the server Queries generate load when they are evaluated on demand Continued….

20. Collections and Queries (continued) Microsoft Confidential 19 CollectionsQueries Collections use database space which depends on number of resources in the collections Very minimal database space is used as it only stores the definition of the query Collection are used by other components of Configuration Manager Queries used only to evaluate membership rules Collections can be created by importing a query rule.

21. Collection Best Practices & Logs Microsoft Confidential 20 Enabling incremental updates on a large number of collections can cause performance issues “Use incremental updates for this collection” option might cause evaluation delays when you enable it for many collections. The threshold is about 200 collections. The exact number depends on the following factors: Number of collections The frequency of new resources being added and changed in the hierarchy The number of clients in your hierarchy The complexity of collection membership rules in your hierarchy Recommendation is to always create a query first, validate the results set to make sure membership rule is correct and then create the collection based on a query Logs Colleval.log - Records details about when collections are created, changed, and deleted by the Collection Evaluator Smsprov.log - Records activities performed by the SMS Provider. Administrator Console activities use the SMS provider

22. Demonstration Microsoft Confidential 21 Create collection using query membership

23. Module Review Can User Resources or Device Resources be part of the same Collection? Name 4 types of Membership Rules? How often does the default incremental collection evaluation run? Name some of the management actions that can be performed against the Device Collections when compared to the User Collections? What is the threshold to use Incremental Updates for Collections? Microsoft Confidential 22

24. Module Summary In this module we covered: Looked at What is new in Collections in System Center 2012 Configuration Manager Learned how to create Collections and Queries Understanding Collection properties, operation and maintenance of Collections Understanding Maintenance Windows Look at the difference between Collections and Queries and when to use Queries versus Collections Understanding Configuration Manager and logs related to Collections and Queries Microsoft Confidential 23