Microsoft System Center is a suite of enterprise-grade management tools developed by Microsoft. It is designed to help businesses manage and automate their IT environments efficiently. System Center provides a range of capabilities for managing various aspects of IT infrastructure, including servers, desktops, applications, virtual machines, and devices.
Some of its most important use cases include:
Infrastructure Management: System Center provides tools for managing and monitoring physical and virtual infrastructure components such as servers, storage, and networking devices. It allows administrators to maintain the health, performance, and availability of critical infrastructure resources.
Endpoint Management: System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) enables organizations to manage endpoints such as desktops, laptops, servers, and mobile devices. It facilitates tasks such as operating system deployment, software distribution, patch management, and endpoint protection.
In addition, the product includes several features to support other use cases related to application management, virtualization management, backup, recovery and many more.
It includes several management tools such as configuration manager (SCCM), Operations managers (SCOM), virtual machine manager (VMM), End Point Protection etc. each offering distinctive features. Read more about it here.
This blog talks about the license compliance support on ServiceNow SAM Pro and the high-level configuration steps.
High Level Architecture
Microsoft System Center Architecture at a high level is depicted below:
Figure 1 Microsoft System Center High Level Architecture
It has two major layers viz. management layer and client layer. Management layer includes management servers such as Central administrative site, Primary site server etc. and client layer includes client devices such as devices with Server OS and Client OS, on which the system center agents are installed.
High Level Description of Management and client layers is provided as below:
- Management servers such as Central administrative Site Server, Primary Site Server, Secondary Site Server. These are usually used to manage or support the client's machines. These management servers have software running on them such as configuration manager console, configuration manager primary site setup (non-licensable).
- Client machines have the system center agent(s) (such as configuration manager client, end point protection) installed (licensable). Please note that the client machines can have any OS running on them. It can be either Server OS like Windows Server or Client OS like Windows Client
Microsoft Licensing Rules on System Center
As a general licensing rule, for System Center: License is only required for client machines (where agents are installed), whereas the Management Server software (s) requires no License.
- Server Client * (s) follow the Core/CAL licensing rule- same as Microsoft Windows Server also known as Sever ML (Management License)
- Client Devices *follow the Client ML (Management License) Licensing Rule
*Server Clients Devices are identified if they have Server OS Installed ex. Windows Server
* Client Device are identified if they have no Server OS installed ex. Windows 10/2000
For more details, please refer the Microsoft Product terms or general guidelines here
Figure 2 Licensing Guidelines Microsoft System Center
If we look at the architecture and overlay the licensing requirements we can see below:
Figure 2 Over laying system center architecture with licensing requirements
ServiceNow SAM Pro Support
ServiceNow SAM Pro and Discovery and able to discover and determine the license compliance for System Center.
Details about ServiceNow support:
- Discovery and Normalization for System Center installs including management server and client devices.
- Automatic identification of SKUs for Client MLs and Server MLs (Management Licenses)
- License compliance determination based on System Center agent installs on Client devices (server /non- server OS)
- Discovery and Normalization
Management Servers software is automatically discovered and normalized as non-licensable.
Figure 4 End Point configuration manager console discovery and normalization.
Figure 5 End Point configuration manager Primary setup software discovered and normalized.
System Client agents’ software installations are automatically discovered and normalized as licensable both on Server and Non-Server OS.
Figure 6 End Point configuration manager client agent discovered and normalized.
Figure 7 End Point Protection client agent discovered and normalized.
- Automatic SKU/PPN Identification
Automatic identification of SKU/PPN for System Center Client management Licenses and management server licenses
Figure 8 SKU identification for Client ML
Figure 9 SKU for System Center DC (Server ML)
- Software License compliance
ServiceNow SAM pro automatically applies the licensing rules of core/cal licensing model if System Center installs are on Server OS, or licensing rules of Client MLs licensing model if installs are on non- Server OS
To support License compliance of system center, you need to add a minor configuration so that the system center agent installs consume licenses correctly.
- Client devices with System Center agent installs on Server OS consumes license from core/cal license entitlements (such as from System Center DC/Standard or CIS (Core Infrastructure Suite) DC/Standard)
- Client devices with System Center agent installs on non- Server OS consumes license from client ML entitlements.
ServiceNow SAM Pro: How to setup?
The overall steps to configure are listed below:
Figure 10 Configuration Steps on ServiceNow
*Note: You can even use the Guided setup for Windows Server to achieve the same results. Details here
Details of the configuration steps:
ServiceNow SAM Pro: How does license compliance work?
The below diagram details out how ServiceNow SAM Pro applies licenses for system center effectively after the above setup has been completed
Figure 11 Application of licensing rules by SAM Pro
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