SCCM Preferred Management Points | Selection Criteria | ConfigMgr

This is a quick post about SCCM Preferred Management Points options and their usefulness in many scenarios. A similar discussion came into “How to Manage Devices Live Digital Events.” In this post, let’s see how the ConfigMgr Preferred MP setting helps clients contact the MPs in the particular boundary group.

The management point efficiently delivers clients’ policy and content location information and seamlessly receives configuration data from them. Additionally, SCCM clients effectively utilize a service location process to locate site system servers.

Related Post – ConfigMgr DP Selection Criteria Content Source Location Priority List

Index
SCCM Preferred Management Points
Management Point Selection Criteria
SCCM Preferred Management Points
Enable Preferred Management Point

SCCM Preferred Management Points

The following two paragraphs were from the blog “FIX SCCM Management Point Rotation Issue with AllowedMPs” registry entry for SCCM 2012 and the current branch versions until the preferred MP concept was introduced in SCCM 1802.

The SCCM MP rotation issue has been a big headache for many folks like me. SCCM comes with a workaround for the Management Point Rotation issue.  More details about the MP rotation issue in SCCM “Workaround for Untrusted Forest SCCM 2012 MP Rotation Issue“.

Microsoft introduced a registry key called “AllowedMPs.” With this key, you can force the client to communicate with a specific MP, which you’ve mentioned in the registry key’s value.

Management Point Selection Criteria

The following are the SCCM Management Point Selection criteria as per Microsoft document. SCCM Preferred Management Points setting can significantly change the MP selection criteria from the client-side.

NOTE! – This is applicable only if you have NOT enabled the “Client prefers to use Management Points specified in boundary group” for the preferred Management point option.

1. Proxy MP if the client is part of a secondary server
   1. HTTPS capable in a trusted or local forest
   2. HTTPS capable NOT in a trusted or local forest
   3. HTTP capable in a trusted or local forest
   4. HTTP capable NOT in a trusted or local forest
2. Local MP (within boundary groups if the client is part of multiple boundary groups all boundary groups will be considered as local).
   1. HTTPS capable in a trusted or local forest
   2. HTTPS capable NOT in a trusted or local forest
   3. HTTP capable in a trusted or local forest
   4. HTTP capable NOT in a trusted or local forest
3. Assigned: Any SCCM MP that is a site system for the client’s assigned site
   1. HTTPS capable in a trusted or local forest
   2. HTTPS capable NOT in a trusted or local forest
   3. HTTP capable in a trusted or local forest
   4. HTTP capable NOT in a trusted or local forest

NOTE! – Reference of some old client-side Locationservices.log.

Attempting to retrieve lookup MP(s) from AD LocationServices
Lookup Management Points from AD: LocationServices
Name: 'ACNCMMP1.XYZ.DMZ.com' HTTPS: 'N' ForestTrust: 'N' LocationServices
Name: 'ACNCMMP2.ABC.DMZ.com' HTTPS: 'N' ForestTrust: 'N' LocationServices
Retrieved lookup MP(s) from AD LocationServices
Refreshed security settings over AD LocationServices
Default Management Points from AD: LocationServices
Name: 'ACNCMMP1.XYZ.DMZ.com' HTTPS: 'N' ForestTrust: 'N' LocationServices
Name: 'ACNCMMP2.ABC.DMZ.com' HTTPS: 'N' ForestTrust: 'N' LocationServices Persisting the default management points in WMI LocationServices 

SCCM Preferred Management Points

Configuration Manager preferred Management Point is the best option Microsoft introduced (in the 1802 version of ConfigMgr) to avoid MP Rotation and AllowedMPs registry keys from previous versions.

The Preferred MP option from hierarchy settings enables a client to identify a management point that’s associated with its boundary.

When configuring preferred management points, an SCCM client places them at the top of its list!

Enable Preferred Management Point

Enable SCCM preferred Management Points with the following steps.

1. Launch Console
2. Navigate to the Administration – Site Configuration – Sites node
3. Select Hierarchy Settings from the site server
4. Select Clients prefer to use management points specified in the boundary groups option from the General tab
5. Select OK to save the configuration.

Make sure boundary group configurations are appropriate with Site system servers. SCCM Preferred Management Points should be part of boundary group Site system servers to make this work as expected.

We are on WhatsApp. To get the latest step-by-step guides and news updates, Join our Channel. Click here –HTMD WhatsApp.

Author

Anoop C Nair is Microsoft MVP! He is a Device Management Admin with more than 20 years of experience (calculation done in 2021) in IT. He is a Blogger, Speaker, and Local User Group HTMD Community leader. His main focus is on Device Management technologies like SCCM 2012, Current Branch, and Intune. He writes about ConfigMgr, Windows 11, Windows 10, Azure AD, Microsoft Intune, Windows 365, AVD, etc.