Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003 provides a means to manage software updates for Microsoft platform endpoints. The SMS server contains a database of logical groups with common attributes called collections. SMS operates only on clients endpoints) that are members of a collection.
Software installation packages come ready to install from Microsoft or you can create your own. A package contains the files and instructions for distributing the software. An advertisement is a notification that says an update (package) is available.
NOTE:Detailed instructions on using and configuring SMS are beyond the scope of this document. See Section 17.9, Learning More About SMS for links to helpful SMS information.
NOTE:SMS server has a setting that allows users to interact with and cancel patch installation. Novell recommends that you do not allow users to cancel patch installation. Once a patch installation has been canceled, the patch does not automatically attempt to install later and the endpoint will never pass the NAC policy test without manual intervention by the SMS administrator. If an end-user cancels a patch installation, the SMS administrator must re-run the advertisement to patch the endpoint.