Today, while updating some CMS (Centralized Management Server) registrations, I stumbled upon something rather useful. The finding was that you can remotely access the SQL Server Configuration Manager for any 2005+ SQL Server. The CMS doesn’t support management of prior versions, but it does support many other functions for those previous versions…see the link above for more information. But getting back to today’s topic, the Configuration Manager, follow the steps below to avoid having to RDP or physically log onto your SQL Servers in the field just to manage and configure the underlying services:
1) Make sure you have a CMS configured (again, Centralized Management Server).
2) Using SSMS, connect to your CMS via the Registered Servers view and navigate to a server instance you would like to manage remotely via the Configuration Manager console.
3) Right-click on the server instance and choose SQL Server Configuration Manager.
That’s all there is to it. Now you can modify configurations for, and manage the state of, any of the SQL Server services on the remote servers without ever leaving the comfort of your own desktop Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Keep in mind that you can only access this feature through the Registered Servers view of the SQL Server Management Studio, not the Object Explorer view. IF you find or already know of a better way, feel free to post a comment and I’ll be sure to update this post.
Update
11/11/2010
Didn’t find a better way, but did find that there appears to be a bug in the 2008 CMS GUI within SSMS, at least thru SP1 (build 2531). When you have SQL Server 2005 instances registered and attempt to use the above technique to manage the services on that remote server, you’ll get the following error message:
Cannot connect to WMI provider. You do not have permission or the server is unreachable. Note that you can only manage SQL Server 2005 and later servers with SQL Server Configuration Manager.
Invalid namespace [0x8004100e]
I found this KB Article, but it’s not particularly useful: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956013
If you find a solution, please post a comment and let me know. Based on the error, this shouldn’t be occurring when attempting to manage the 2005 instances, but maybe there’s just some sort of imcompatibility built into the coding of the 2008 SSMS, just as when attempting to manage 2005 SSRS report objects with 2008 BIDS.
-Patrick
