Are there complete System Center Configuration Manager alternatives?

I have been researching System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R2 SP2 and struggling to swallow the SCCM pill. The tool seems outdated and not well equipped for managing an environment with the latest versions of Server 2008 R2, SQL 2008 R2, Exchange 2010, SharePoint 2010, etc.

I need software that will help me:

• Deploy new software
• Monitor what software is deployed
• Deploy updates
• Install new server and client OSes with specific configurations
• Monitor drive space and be able to send out alerts
• Aggregate event logs so that there is one central place for monitoring the health of an organization
• Be configurable via script
• Have a good DR plan so that all the effort poured into setting everything up is not at risk

These features line up well with the advertised features of System Center Configuration Manager and possibly Operations Manager as well but both of these pieces of software feel old and out of date.

Do I have any real alternatives in this market space?

I have seen Nagios and Zenoss but we are a Windows shop and adding the maintenance and management of a linux server for this purpose is probably more work than dealing with the quirks of SCCM.

From serverfault ObligatoryMoniker

• Other than the patch management pieces it sounds like you need to add SCOM to your environment

  From Jim B