The System Center Configuration Manager 2007 (ConfigMgr) database can be installed on a clustered SQL Server, some things work different though compared to installing ConfigMgr on a normal SQL server installation, and you should be aware of them before starting your installation.

To summarize in front, what you should take into account before starting your installation:

1. Make sure that the SQL administrators are aware that during installation extra righs are needed and that after installation the Site server must stay local administrator on the cluster nodes
2. Make sure that the SQL administrators are aware of the fact that ConfigMgr will install a service on the Cluster Nodes, which is used for creating the backup using VSS
3. Make sure that each shared cluster disk contains a no_sms_on_drive.sms file on the disk
4. Configure the Site Backup tasks, so that it is either configured to backup to an UNC path or a drive which is suitable for storing the backup files on both the site server and the cluster nodes using the “Different Paths for the Site Backup and Database backup” option

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When you are installing System Center Configuration Manager (ConfigMgr) 2007 in environments where group policies are used to control the User Rights Assignment and Security Options security settings of the Servers, because if you don’t the settings coming from the ConfigMgr installation will be overwritten at the next policy refresh, which could result in interesting scenario’s. To mitigate this you have to provide the settings needed to make the Server work correctly to the Group Policy Administrators.

How to determine the Policy Settings:

In order to determine the correct settings, its best to build ConfigMgr in a test environment, where the servers are isolated from Group Policies when you are installing them. Start with detailing the configuration of the Security Settings of the machine in the state which you received it, or just after you installed the machine yourself. This can be easily done by exporting the User Rights Assigment and the Security Options settings using the Export List… options when you rights click the User Rights Assignment or Security Options node. Save the output, and make sure you detail the fact that this settings reflect your start position. (more)

All who work with Configuration Manager know that clients sometimes stop working correctly. This means that the Configuration Manager client is not communicating anymore with its management point. This will result for example in that advertisements are not being presented to the users. Two well-known causes of this are: corrupted or broken WMI on the client computer or the Client Agent services has been stopped.

System Center Configuration Manager 2012 has a built-in health feature to repair the client. The program is called Ccmeval.exe and can be found in the folder C:\Windows\Ccm. When the client is installed a scheduled task is created on the client computer to run this program daily. This means that a client should not be dysfunctional for more than 1 day.

Let see if this works.. (more)