I began testing the ConfigMgr SMS Provider API (or AdminService as it will be called) in the 1810 Technical Preview and wrote 2 posts about it (1) & (2). With the release of the AdminService in Current Branch 1810, a few things have changed and I wanted to provide an update. Additonally, I’ve had the opportunity to chat with the ConfigMgr Product Group at #MMSDE this week and they’ve provided some roadmap information about the API and what to expect in the future.
Getting Started
To enable the SMS Provider AI, you need to enable Pre-Release Features in the console, then enable the feature.
AdminService Controllers
WMI
The WMI controller will query ~900 ConfigMgr WMI classes in read-only mode but isn’t configured to perform any WMI methods at his time (it’s coming).
Versioned Controllers
There will also be a set of controllers that will be used to perform various functions and they will include a version as part of the URL for the controller (Currently, all use v1.0). In the technical preview, we saw a list of some of the initial versioned controllers including:
DistributionPointGroups
Collections
UserApplicationRequest
Reports
HubItems
1810 shipped with only UserApplicationRequest enabled. According to Mark Silvey ‘We disabled them (the other controllers) because they weren’t being used yet and we don’t like to leave surface areas open that don’t need to be.’ Expect to see more of these controllers appear in future releases.
URLs
The base URL to the AdminService is https:///AdminService. Using something like Postman, you can query the AdminService to find what is available. Start with these:
Versioned Controllers
https://<ServerName/AdminService/v1.0
https://<ServerName/AdminService/v1.0/$metadata
**
WMI Controller**
https://<ServerName/AdminService/wmi
https://<ServerName/AdminService/wmi/$metadata
If you use the /$metadata parameter, you will see the OData markup for the controllers and it will list the properties of each controller object as well as functions available.
Refer to my previous post for more details on how to use the URLs to access data.
OData / Power BI
In the Technical Preview,. there was an issue with the $metadata tag for the WMI controller that prevented Power BI from processing AdminService OData information. This issue has been resolved and works great in 1810, though many of the classes/relationships are still being built out, so there are still more work required before this is ready, but it’s a great start!
Future Plans
One of the most common questions about the new AdminService has been ‘Is this going to replace WMI?’ The answer is…complicated. The
AdminService is just a web service layer sitting on top of the existing ConfigMgr WMI infrastructure. The product group has started working to change backend Admin Console components to use the
AdminService as a first step. The next step will be to bypass WMI (for as much stuff as possible) and communicate directly with the SQL database. To put the amount of work required for this effort into perspective, according to David James, there are approximately 300 YEARS of development hours in the current ConfigMgr product. It’s just going to take time to get there. They told me they will get to it once they finish adding Animated GIFs to Software Center (j/k).