System Center 2012 Endpoint Protection (part 1)

Last week I installed System Center 2012 Endpoint Protection (SCEP) at my office. SCEP is built on Configuration Manager (ConfigMgr) 2012, creating a single infrastructure for deploying and managing endpoint protection. SCEP uses the same industry-leading antimalware engine as Microsoft Security Essentials and Windows Defender (Windows 8), to protect systems against the latest malware and rootkits. SCEP is previously known as Forefront Endpoint Protection (FEP) 2010.

In this series of blogposts I will mention the installation/configuration and deploying SCEP agents (1), deploying antimalware policies and definition updates (2), monitoring, dashboard views and reports (3).

Let's mention the installation/configuration first.

In ConfigMgr 2007 it was needed to install and integrate FEP 2010 within the ConfigMgr console. More about that HERE. In ConfigMgr 2012 it will be a lot easier than that! Just install the Endpoint Protection point role on your ConfigMgr Site server. That way it will be activated in your environment. No need to create a software package or something like that. This will be created by default also.

Beneath "Assets and Compliance" there will be a folder for creating and managing policies. Beneath "Monitoring" there will be a Dashboard for SCEP 2012 status. In Reports there will be six reports to run. During ConfigMgr 2012 agent install, the CCMSETUP folder will be used for ConfigMgr and SCEP installation. The file SCEPInstall.exe will be download by default also. This file is used for SCEP agent installation.

Normally, SCEP installation is disabled within the ConfigMgr agent policy. Beneath "Administration" there is a Client Settings policy. Just leave it at default settings and create a new Client Settings policy. Within this new policy, enable Endpoint Protection and deploy it on a collection which must have Endpoint Protection. In my case I deployed it on the "All Desktop and Server Clients" collection. That way ALL clients with a ConfigMgr agent will also have SCEP installed automatically.

Both installation/configuration and deploy SCEP agents are done now!

My next blogpost will be about deploying antimalware policies and definition updates. Stay tuned for more!