Microsoft has been updating and rebranding its system management products under the System Center label.

System Center Essentials 2007 is the small-business member of that family, aimed at companies with up to 500 users looking for centralised Windows system monitoring and management tools.

The Essentials 2007 package is based on what used to be called Microsoft Operation Manager (MOM) together with now-rebranded Systems Management Server (SMS) and the Windows Server Update Services (WSUS).

The result is the ability to manage all your Windows servers and desktops from a single console with integrated tools to monitor availability, collect hardware and software inventories, remotely troubleshoot problems and centrally manage the distribution of software and updates. Tools to manage SNMP devices, such as network switches and routers are also provided.

You’ll need a fairly well-specified server running Windows Server 2003 to host the core components with a fast processor, at least 1GB of Ram and plenty of disk space (eight to 10GB) to download and store the WSUS updates. You’ll also need SQL Server, although on a small deployment this can be the free SQL Server Express implementation.

A wizard-driven procedure drives the server installation, checking that prerequisites, such as the .Net Framework, SQL Server and WSUS are configured. Most of these can be installed or updated for you, but others can’t and require separate setup, and the complete process can be quite lengthy. We put everything onto one server ­ a typical small-business configuration ­ and it took a couple of hours with a couple of server reboots needed. On larger networks the components can be spread over multiple servers, the only limitation being one core Essentials 2007 server per Lan.

Essentials 2007 installs management packs for monitoring common Windows operating systems and applications, such as Exchange and SQL Server. Templates make it easy to start monitoring, with an initial discovery wizard to help identify manageable devices, plus facilities to discover new nodes automatically.

Any PC or server running Windows 2000 or later can be managed from the Essentials console. Basic inventory information will be retrieved straight away, with additional agents required to gather more detailed data and provide support for remote monitoring, software distribution and other management features.

We found easy it to push these agents out to client PCs and configure software distribution with yet another wizard to help remotely install drivers and applications onto target desktops and servers. There’s an easy-to-use wizard to download security patches from Microsoft’s website and distribute them using WSUS.

We liked the dashboard displays that let you keep an eye on the health of the network then drill down to get more information when problems are highlighted. The interface is easy to understand with lots of integrated tools such as remote desktop to help troubleshoot, plus extensive alerting and reporting facilities.

On the downside it is Windows-only with no support for Linux desktops or servers. Neither can you manage handheld devices using Essentials 2007, although PDA support is planned. It’s not a cheap solution and some expertise is required to get the best out of it. Smaller companies may prefer to sign up with a specialist provider able to use Essentials 2007 to remotely manage their networks for them.