Contributed By: Cliff Hobbs [MVP SMS]
This article is a summary of Bill Anderson's SMS Topaz presentation from the MEC 2001 conference.

The presentation started with a summary of what has happened to SMS in the past year, namely:

• SP3 was shipped
• New programs have been introduced to ensure the quality of future releases, the emphasis being getting customers involved in the Early Adopters Program
• The "Tools Team" have been working to preserve the investment in technologies within current releases for example the Web reporting tools, the new version of SMS Installer, AD Synch, etc.
• Work has continued on Topaz

Bill then went on to outline the Timeline for Topaz:

• Beta 1 & 2 will start late in Q3 2001 and run to early 2002 with an expected ship date around the middle of 2002
• The Beta will be publicly available Q1 2002

Before going on to list the most requested features for Topaz, he emphasized that:

• Nothing is set in stone at present and this list is subject to change
• Microsoft are still open to feedback on the final feature set which can be done through the [email protected] address

Bill stressed that Topaz itself has two major themes:

• It will be a quality product, that will be an easy upgrade, and include features that will compel you to implement it
• It will be a natural upgrade for SMS 2.0 customers

The Feature List for Topaz at present is shown below with each feature being explained in detail separately:

• Mobile client support
• AD/ Windows 2000 Integration
• No more Logon Points
• Web-based Reporting that is integrated
• New Software Metering
• Distribution Point Delta Replication
• Improvements to Usability and Performance to the admin UI

For Mobile Clients:

• Customers and Analysts have reported more and more laptops are being shipped/deployed
• Customers want proper inventory/asset management for laptops and the ability to distribute software to them
• The challenges in achieving this need to be borne in mind such as:
  • Bandwidth awareness when communicating with laptops
  • All communications need to be able to deal with disconnections and span multiple connections
  • For software distribution, there should be the option to download packages to the local drive before the installation takes place
  • Laptops roam and this needs to be catered for
  • SMS should be able to distinguish between a laptop and a desktop without relying on the Administrator

Topaz will cater for Mobile clients as follows:

• A new client specifically designed for laptop users will be included, the goal being to preserve a common administrator "experience"
• The client won't be tied to a site through subnet boundaries as it is at present
• The client will include Background Intelligent Transfer Services or "BITS" which:
  • Are bandwidth aware
  • Support checkpoint restart at a byte level (unless the client is roaming)
  • Supports the facility to download a package locally before executing it
  • Ships as an API in Windows XP as well as in the Topaz client
• The installation of this new mobile client will be streamlined allowing it to be pre-loaded
• This client will include a new IIS based Management Point server role which allows both HTTP and MSMQ communications with the server
• At preset, the new Mobile client:
  • Will only be supported on Windows 2000/XP
  • Will only include inventory and software distribution whereas as the desktop client will support more platforms and be fully-featured

Active Directory/ Windows 2000 Integration was the next feature that Bill covered.  The feedback from customers has been:

• Not to make Topaz require Active Directory
• If I do have AD implemented I want to be able to use my AD structure with SMS:
  • Several people have already used ADSYNC
  • The most frequent request is to allow SMS to target a superset of inventory and AD containers
• SMS Sites should be aligned with AD Sites
• Why can't I just use Add/Remove Programs on Windows 2000 instead of APM?
• I hate having to install software as an Admin

To address these issues/concerns Topaz will:

• Align AD Site boundaries with SMS Sites
  • SMS Site boundaries can be defined from AD site names
  • IP subnets only need to be defined in one place and SMS will leverage them
  • Both IP subnets and AD Site boundaries can be used to define an SMS site
  • AD Site boundaries allow real IP subnets to be logically sub or super-netted to split and/or combine subnets

• Support AD Discovery of Systems, User Groups, or System Groups:
  • AD System Discovery:
    • Will discover new systems from AD machine accounts
    • Has been designed as an alternative to Network Discovery to drive the NT Remote Client installation process
    • Must be used in conjunction with AD Site boundaries
    • You need to specify the AD container(s) for it to read as it reads the machine accounts in the specified container(s)
    • DSGetSiteName is used to obtain the AD Site name
    • DDR(s) are generated

• AD User Group Discovery:
  • Will discover Users and their AD containers
  • Has been designed as a replacement to NT User/User Group Discovery for users using AD, but can be used in parallel with NT User/Group Discovery
  • You need to specify the AD container(s) for it to read as it reads the user accounts in the specified container(s)
  • AD group membership for Global, Universal, and non-security groups is obtained
  • DDR(s) are generated

• AD System Group Discovery:
  • Will discover AD containers for any systems assigned to an SMS site
  • Has been designed to collect system group information
  • You need to specify the AD container(s) for it to read as it reads the machine accounts in the specified container(s) that match systems assigned to the collection site
  • AD group membership for Global, Universal, and non-security groups is obtained
  • DDR(s) are generated
  • Site membership data is collected during Hardware inventory

• Each of the above discovery methods:
  • Can be independently enabled with their own separate schedule
  • Can be setup to discover objects from different containers
  • All three of these use a shared ADSI code to read information from AD to generate DDRs

• Topaz will Support Targeting of Users and Machines in AD:
  • As AD System discovery collects the domain, OU, Site, and AD Security Groups, machines can be targeted
  • As AD User discovery collects the domain, OU, and AD Security Groups, users can be targeted
  • Global, Universal, Nested, and non-security groups can also be targeted
  • Collections can be used to implement more granular targeting such as "all users in the Sales OU and Mobile User Global Group" or "All machines in Server OU, Redmond site and Terminal Server Universal Group with greater than 512 MB"

• It is planned to Integrate Topaz with Windows 2000 Add/Remove Programs:
  • Advertisements can be displayed in Add/Remove Programs on Windows 2000 clients
  • The option to use this feature is included as part of the Package Program Properties
  • SMS Advertisements will appear the same as Group Policy Advertisements
  • Categories will be supported but each program can only have one category
  • This feature will be supported on Windows 2000/XP clients with either the mobile or legacy desktop client installed on them

• Topaz will also:
  • Allow packages to be created directly from MSI
  • Include new MSI elevated permissions

• Topaz will no longer require Logon Points - this is achieved through the new CAP Locator Service (CLS):
  • SMSMAN uses Logon Points at present to:
    • Install the SMS Client Bootstrap
    • Compare the client's IP subnet with site boundaries
    • Locate a CAP for any assigned sites
  • CLS doesn’t require Logon Points as CAPs can be accessed directly:
    • "/N" command line switch changes the mode
    • CLS requires a path to the CAP server
    • When running in automatic mode it assumes CAPman is running from the CAP (CAPman is a locator service that uses WINS or AD)

• Topaz will include integrated Web-based Reporting that:
  • Is an extensible reporting tool
  • Consists of a set of high performance SQL views that are automatically maintained.  The schema used for these views will be documented and supported and is based on the SMS Provider schema
  • Replaces Crystal Reports
  • Has better security than the RTW version
  • Will have internationalized versions

• A number of enhancements will be made to Inventory with Topaz:
  • Inventory traffic will be reduced
  • Software inventory will include some new options, namely:
    • WMI Provider to inventory ARP installed program keys and Windows Installer component status
    • Better selection for file system inventory such as wildcards, directories, and subdirectories

• The new Software Metering program is a complete re-write of the SMS 2.0 program:
  • It is more scaleable and therefore less expensive to implement
    • It will be similar to the architecture used for Inventory
    • It uses WMI based client side providers
  • It will provide Offline metering to provide usage monitoring and denial of program access by time of day and/or security group(s)
  • It will be integrated into the SMS Admin console and database rather than being completely separate as at present
  • It won't provide Online metering (in other words license enforcement)

• A massive improvement to Software Distribution in Topaz is Distribution Point Delta Replication
  • SMS 2.0 always resends the entire package source to child sites and then to Distribution Points
  • Topaz will:
    • Detect changes and only send changed files to the child site (known as file level delta replication)
    • Automatically repair child site package source files if they get out of sync with the parent
    • Be unable to update any packages at a child site(s) if the package is in use
    • Delta replication to Distribution Points has just been added
  • Here's an example of how it works:
    • A package is created at the Parent site
    • The package is then distributed to child sites
    • The package is changed at the originating site (the site where it was created)
    • Updating the package at the originating site automatically initiates Delta replication to only copy the changes to the child sites

• Bill then went through the upgrade options to Topaz:
  • There is no upgrade path from SMS 1.2 to Topaz - you HAVE to go via SMS 2.0
  • The upgrade from SMS 2.0 to Topaz is designed to very easy by eliminating Logon Points which is the biggest interoperability issue
  • To implement Topaz your SMS Servers must be running Windows 2000 or above although Distribution Points can be hosted on NT4 systems
  • The new Mobile client will upgrade gracefully over the existing client
  • The common administrative experience will be maintained

• Bill then wrapped up the session by giving some conclusions:
  • SMS is a strategic product for Microsoft
  • Don't confuse SMS with IntelliMirror which is a common mistake
  • Topaz will be a solid product with a great feature set that meets your needs
  • Topaz will build on the strengths of SMS 2.0 including it's solid quality
  • SMS 1.2 customers can get ready for Topaz by upgrading to SMS 2.0 now