Endpoint Services, What is MECM?
Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, or MECM, is Microsoft's enterprise-ready software for allowing IT Pros to manage computers (known as "endpoints") running Microsoft Windows in their units & colleges. MECM manages endpoints with an installed client running with administrative privileges, a centralized infrastructure, and a per-unit caching server called a "distribution point" where the client obtains content from.
Typical MECM tasks include:
- Managing software (optional or mandatory installs, or software removal), operating system updates, and operating system upgrades.
- Allowing end-users to install or remove software using Software Center, a self-service interface on each endpoint.
- Collecting statistics and metadata from endpoints.
- Using gathered information to compile reports summarizing endpoint activity.
- Deploying and managing compliance policy for devices and users.
- Imaging and migrating endpoints.
- Remotely controlling the endpoint for one-on-one desktop support.
- Deploying and managing endpoint protection.
It is important to note that MECM is designed primarily for use with Microsoft Windows endpoints.
For the Urbana-Champaign campus, MECM is financed via the Provost's Cybersecurity Investment and has no cost to units. For other campuses, it is available at a cost to University IT Pros and their units & colleges. View costs for using the MECM service. MECM works on physical and virtual Windows systems, and MECM services are designed to be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The University MECM deployment also comes with support services and a community of IT Pros already using the University MECM deployment.
View the MECM service catalog entry.