Delivering Manageability and Performance - SQL Server 2012 Internals and Troubleshooting - page 451

3. Type the name of the instance that will host
your Central Management Server in the “Server
name:” i eld of the New Server Registration
dialog. You can optionally give this Registered
server a friendly name in the registered server
name and registered server description text
i elds in this dialog. Click Save after you have
select the hosting instance.
Now that your Central Management Server is created,
you'll want to add servers to it. It is a best practice to
create various server groups for the different groupings
of servers in your environment (e.g. Production, Test,
Development). To create a Server Group right-click on
the Central Management Server you just created and
choose New Server Group, enter the name Production ,
and click OK.

Register each production instance within the group
named Production by right clicking on the server group
and choosing New Server Registration. The instances
must be able to communicate directly with the Central
Management Server, so you will want to point specify connection details to connect to the instance
in the New Server Registration dialog.

FIGURE 16-2

If policies were created on an instance other than the Central Management Server, you need to
transfer them, which you can do using a simple export/import process. To export the policies from
the source instance, right-click and choose Export, and specify a name and location on disk. One
XML i le is created for each policy exported.

To import policies to the Central Management Server, right-click on the server name and choose
Central Management Server Actions, and then select Import Policies from the submenu. Navigate to
the folder location and select the policy i les to import.

To evaluate the policies, right-click on the Central Management Server to evaluate for all regis-
tered servers, or right-click on the group name to evaluate for servers within the group, and choose
Evaluate Policies from the menu. Choose the source (specify the Central Management Server) and
check the policies to evaluate using the left-hand checkboxes. Click Evaluate in the bottom-right
corner and verify the output.

NAMING CONVENTIONS FOR POLICIES

Consider dei ning a naming convention standard for conditions and policies. It helps
to organize policies by using the target in the name; for example, any policies for
databases can include the prei x “Database” in the policy name, and server-wide
policies can be prei xed with “Server.”