Monitoring and Optimization
After installing SMS, you need a before-and-after look at Site Server to see the impact the changes may have made. Recall that Site Servers may be domain controllers, non-domain controllers, and secondary Site Servers.
Expect the exam to test your skills at configuring SMS status messages and using the SMS Status Message Viewer. You need to be able to react to different messages, which relates to optimizing your servers.
An ongoing monitoring is required to track trends and the impact your server has on your network. The exam will quiz your ability to monitor all pieces of your SMS environment: client, inventory collection, software distribution, remote control, and software metering. You also have to monitor SMS functions through event viewer.
SMS activity is more than just software distribution, hardware inventory, and remote control. SMS Administrators need to use the Network Monitor within SMS to keep track of network traffic. This Network Monitor is different from the Netmon you may have experienced in Windows NT. This Network Monitor allows you to see the health of the entire network as opposed to just the one server. You have to know how to create and edit filters, use the network trace, and create log files to evaluate trends.
As an SMS Administrator, you'll no doubt be faced with revving up your server for peak performancethis exam assumes that you know how. This means you need to be able to react to the counters and results of the performance and network monitoring.
What good would a great, finely tuned server do for anyone if there were no backups? You need to create a maintenance plan for the SMS database that includes backing up the data. While we are at it, how about backing up and restoring an SMS Site too?