SCE nad its tech refresh [updated to support Vista], is short for Systems Center Essentials.
SCE intended for IT/MIS partners that sell services into the SMB market.
It is a huge, and welcome gift, from Microsoft. If one thinks of MOM and SMS and WSUS on steroids, one can begin to imagine what SCE and Vista can do.
It is a management tool, for sure, but it allows companies and providers to securfely manage every aspect of a local and or remote network of servers and systems. It fills a huge gap in what would be a required mix/mashup of management software suites, that integrates powerful, yet easy to use management and monitoring/reporting software for those servicing multiple remote systems and networks.
Microsoft's intention was to strengthen and change the revenue models for many smaller providers of technical services by building the means to build a base of stable recurring revenue that allows small providers access to the management tools needed to provide more, and better services to the SMB market.
SCE may be used with, but is not needed to leverage WDS/WAIK in order to deploy custom images of desired builds - be it to back them up, or to use the WDS - or Windows Deployment Services opposite OEM, and OL license models.
So let's say you are an enterprising nework and systems engineer with a portfolio of customers, and you wish to compete with Dell.... You can sell your hardware at your needed higher price, because you can sell it as a service - meaning, that you will design and build it and sell it in as a tunr-key service - soup to nuts and ready to roll.
Once done, you can charge a recurring, stable maintenance and support fee - and use SCE to make it work for you and your customers.
You can use WDS/WAIK in order to manage and deploy your build images and do it quickly.
Finally, what we're seeing is the beginning of what I call, "the true virtualization of the name space - where networks, systems, software and most especially, people driven business processes all exist together and at once." Within these very elastic spaces, there are easy to apply policies that allow, or disallow all types of interchange - need a person that can d x, y, or z, working with a, b, or c resources, and within the vitualized space, subject to policies, one can discover, engage and work with these resources.
SCE, WDS/WAIK make it possible to "profitably" build and sustain these types of very dynamic networks and people driven businesses - they make it possible for smaller providers, or even single techs, to provide world-class professional services that are exactly, yet uniquely compliant with not one set of policies, but many different sets - e.g., as these networks are built and used by people, those users may have to comply with many different sets of rules - as may apply at different companies.
Finally, it is very fast - sub 15 minute builds over the wire. Equally fast recovery times and with SCE/WSUS3.0, one has some very powerful tools to make it efficient and profitable for all - providers and those served by them.
I built my company based upon these principles and added managed bandwidth, and custom software to the mix. That software, usually takes the form of what we call a, "Decision Control Panel" - or applications that aggragate business and other data that is analyzed in real time and crafted into reporting that a user can interact with by clicking the mouse just one time. We then "push" finalized product reporting to end users by allowing them to schedule what they want to know and when. It works and SCE/WDS makes it so much more affordable for others to do the same. All that works out to better systems, networks and people using more relevant informaton. All of this comes down to providing what people need to make good decisions, or to conduct more effective interventions.
Hope this helps.
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