In December the Configuration Manager Sustained Engineering team officially released their Servicing Extension. This add-on helps administrators keep track of things like the release of new hotfixes and cumulative updates, lists the sites you manage and the current version they are running, a client targeting node that enables you to create queries for rolling out updates to machines and a blogs node that brings the latest updates from Microsoft’s official ConfigMgr blogs all from within the console.
Simply download the add-on from here and install it on a machine which has the ConfigMgr console installed. Once installed, open the ConfigMgr console and then open the Administration workspace and you will now see the Site Servicing node. Expand Site Serving and you will have the following nodes listed – Releases, Site Versions, Client Targeting and Blogs.
Site Servicing – The Site Servicing node displays a summary of the latest updates that have been released, the most recent blog posts from the System Center Configuration Manager Team blog as well as the The Official Configuration Manager Support Team blog as well give you the ability to configure proxy settings as well as display the current version of the Servicing Extension add-on installed.
Releases – The Release node displays a list of updates that have been published for ConfigMgr. You can list all updates or filter between ones specifically for SP1 or R2. Each release entry includes links for the KB article, the URL to download the update plus an option to create a query for the update. (For example to identify all clients missing the update) You can also mark an update or all update entries as Read.
Site Versions – The Site Versions node will list all sites in your hierarchy and information like server name, site code, site name, base version and cumulative update installed.
Client Targeting – The Client Targeting node allows you to create queries to be used to identify clients for deploying updates.
Blogs – The Blogs node will automatically update as new updates are posted to Microsoft’s officially ConfigMgr blogs. Currently you can filter articles from the System Center Configuration Manager Team Blog and The Official Configuration Manager Support Team Blog. You also have the ability to mark articles as Read.
Overall I think this add-on and the information it provides is a great idea and I hope that this is something that Microsoft will integrate into the product for future releases.
