System Center Configuration Manager 2007 : Distributing Packages - Creating Collections (part 1) - Static Collections

Collections represent resources within ConfigMgr; they consist of computers, users, or groups. You use collections to target ConfigMgr functions such as defining maintenance windows and performing software distributions, and you can define them as static or dynamic. ConfigMgr includes a set of predefined collections, providing a solid set of collections to use for targeting and presenting good templates for developing additional custom collections that you can build on. Figure 1 displays a set of predefined collections in ConfigMgr in the Configuration Manager console.

Figure 1. Collections in Configuration Manager 2007

1. Static Collections

Static collections are the easiest type of collection to create, and they are useful when you want to define a limited number of systems or users in a collection when the collection membership does not change frequently.

Creating a Static Collection

To understand how static collections work, you will create a static collection for a single computer system, which is one of the most common static collections. Perform the following steps:

1.	Collections are defined in the ConfigMgr console. Navigate to Site Database -> Computer Management -> Collections. Right-click and choose New Collection to start the New Collection Wizard.
2.	On the General screen (shown in Figure 2), define the name of the new collection and a description that is stored in the Comment field. A good approach to naming the collection is to use names similar to collections that already exist. For example, you would name a new collection containing Windows 2008 servers “All Windows 2008 Server Systems,” and a new collection with Windows servers in the Dallas site might be “All Windows Server Systems in Dallas.” Figure 2. The General page of the New Collection Wizard This example creates a sample collection named Static Collection Test, used temporarily for this environment.
3.	There are no members in the collection by default. To add a static member to this collection, click the computer icon (circled in Figure 3) to open the Create Direct Membership Rule Wizard. Figure 3. Membership Rules screen of the New Collection Wizard Alternatively, clicking the query icon (next to the computer icon) opens the Query Rule Properties dialog box.
4.	After the Welcome screen of the Create Direct Membership Rule Wizard, the wizard proceeds to the Search for Resources step, asking you how to find resources to add to the collection. The Search for Resources screen in Figure 4 defines the following fields: Resource class— Provides the list of available resource classes, including Unknown Computer, User Group Resource, User Resource (default), System Resource, and IP Network. This example will use System Resource to identify the name of the computer that will be a member of the static collection. Attribute name— The attributes available vary depending on the resource class previously chosen. Figure 4 shows the Netbios Name selected, as a means to identify the name of the computer that will be a member of the collection. Value— This field defines the potential values for this area. Wildcards are available as needed; as an example, the use of % in this field will identify all available NetBIOS names in the environment. The example shown in Figure 5 specifies the Bluebonnet server. Figure 4. Search for Resources page of the Create Direct Membership Rule Wizard
5.	You can limit collections to contain only members that exist in another collection. As an example, if a collection is restricted to all Windows 2003 systems, any systems without Windows 2003 installed are not included as a potential member in the collection. Because the potential membership for this collection is already limited by using the value Bluebonnet (previously defined on the Search for Resources screen in Figure 4), Figure 5 leaves the Search in this collection field blank. Limiting the membership is also required when you are using the ConfigMgr console and do not have full rights to ConfigMgr resource database; this lets you limit your scope to the collection that your account has access to. Figure 5. Collection Limiting page of the Create Direct Membership Rule Wizard
6.	The previous pages in this wizard defined the potential membership for the collection as a specific resource—Bluebonnet (shown in Figure 6). If multiple resources match those restrictions already specified, they would now appear on the Select Resources page to select the resource(s) for the collection. As an example, if the collection was restricted to all Windows 2003 systems matching the value of SRV%, the Select Resources page would list all the Windows 2003 servers starting with a name containing SRV (SRVAD01, SRVEXCH02, and so on). Figure 6. Select Resources page of the Create Direct Membership Rule Wizard
7.	The Membership Rules screen shows the resources in the new collection. This example creates a new collection containing a single server named Bluebonnet. After moving to the Finished page, the wizard returns to the New Collection Wizard with a direct membership rule created for the Bluebonnet server, displayed in Figure 7. Figure 7. Membership Rules screen of the New Collection Wizard with the Bluebonnet server The Membership Rules screen also provides the capability to schedule when (or if) to update the collection. Notice the checked box for Update this collection on a schedule, which is the default configuration. Also notice that the collection is scheduled to update each day at the same time it was created. Collections will automatically update their contents on a scheduled basis, keeping the contents of the collection current with existing resources. You can also update a collection at any time by right-clicking the collection and choosing the option Update Collection Membership. (However, there is rarely a requirement to update a static membership collection manually.)
8.	Next is the Advertisements screen, which shows a list of advertisements currently defined for this collection. Because you did not create any advertisements for this collection, this screen is empty, as displayed in Figure 8. Figure 8. Advertisements screen of the New Collection Wizard
9.	The Security screen (shown in Figure 9) provides a list of the class and instance security rights that exist for this collection (who has access to do what to this collection). The default rights provided with this wizard are specified in the Site Database -> Security Rights section of the Configuration Manager console. You can add, edit, or delete security rights using the buttons to the right, above the listed permissions. Figure 9. Security screen of the New Collection Wizard
10.	The remaining screens of the New Collection Wizard display the progress as ConfigMgr creates the collection and a confirmation that the collection has been created.

Static collections have a place, particularly if you are creating test environments where you want to limit the systems involved in the tests. This differs from dynamic collections, which have the potential to add more resources to the collection based on those resources matching the criteria for the collection. For this example, a static collection provides a simple way to provide a target to use for deploying software.

Using Static Collections with Dynamic Additions

Sometimes static collections are not only static. You can interact with static collections (and dynamic collections) to add and remove members even outside of the ConfigMgr console. Consider the following example.

During the Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003 timeframe, a consulting organization was using SMS 2003 with the Operating System Deployment (OSD) feature pack to deploy operating systems. This organization also packaged a significant number of applications to deploy during the OSD process. Although most of these functioned as expected, a small subset of the software packages would freeze during the installation process, which caused the operating system deployment to freeze as well.

To address this situation, they created a collection (PostOSDInstall) that had a list of all the workstations deployed with OSD. As OSD completed the installation of each workstation, they added a task to run a script that added the workstation name to the PostOSDInstall collection. The collection was configured to update membership very frequently; once the workstation was added to the PostOSDInstall collection, the software packages advertised to the collection would begin to deploy shortly after the OSD process completed. Using this technique provided a way to deploy software that was failing within the OSD process through ConfigMgr—by approaching it from a different perspective.

Although this is a relatively in-depth example, it is included to show the type of functionality available through static collections that are added to dynamically.