Few weeks Ago, When Robert announced about his new product called LocationAware to control the selection of Management Points, I was elected as one of the beta tester to test the functionality of this product .After many modifications /revisions to the tool,the final product has come out and is available to order.
There are certain times, we would tell to customer,that there is no way that you can control the clients to choose particular management point with today's product and customer would say ,ahh no,there should be way to do it .But now,with the release of Robert tool,you can say ,that there is way to control it and that is nothingbut LocationAware.
Why do you need this tool?
Do you remember Robert’s Configmgr SwitchMP tool? This tool allows you to switch over the client from One MP to other or block all, more info ,you can refer the post.
Using this tool,you can only manage one client and what if you want to have control the of management points on the existing environment across all Configmgr clients.
In today’s configuration manager product, you cannot control the selection of management point for clients, because it is purely Random.
Clients can select any of the existing MP’s, whether it could be local MP or Remote MP (Over WAN).
If the clients choose Local MP, you will not have any burden on the network for sending the client data but what if the clients choose remote MP over WAN which is far and creates lot of network traffic for client communication and sending the client information.
SCCM Admins always wanted to have specific number of clients or clients from particular region should be assigned to specific Management point to avoid bandwidth issues and easy administration.
Long Ago ,i did a post on, how many and what MP ,the clients are choosing for communication. This report show,what are the number of clients each MP is responsible for client communication.
More information about Secondary Sites and Boundary Groups,refer Jason blog post http://blog.configmgrftw.com/secondary-sites-and-boundary-groups/
A simple Diagram picked from SMSMarshal web that illustrates the scenario:
What happens, if You do not use LocationAware?
Look at the above snippet,Clients from New York can select MP from London and clients from London can select MP from New York which adds burden on the network utilization and no way to control this in today’s configmgr product.
What happens, if You use LocationAware?
You can define the clients from Boundary/Boundary Group called ‘New York’ to select MP from New York and do a fallback on London MP incase of New York MP down.
How does it work?
You are provided with LocationAware console and LocationAware agent.
LocationAware console is responsible to do the administrative work to choose what boundaries/boundary groups assigned to what Management Point /Fallback MP’s etc.
LocationAware agent Is Responsible to select the defined management Point by Administrator in LocationAware Console.
How difficult to manage this tool?
It’s very simple to use and friendly GUI which you can run it from anywhere on the network. No Installation required and will not do any changes to the existing hierarchy*.
This tool allows you to select boundary group and to which Management point you want specific boundary assigned to.
This tool also allows fallback MP meaning, if the specified MP is not available for some reason, client will be choosing the Fallback MP and many other features.
How do i get this tool and what is the Price?
Refer http://www.smsmarshall.com/Pages/LocationAware.aspx