The Microsoft Management Console (MMC) provides a common framework for system management. It allows various tools that were previously implemented separately to be integrated in a common user-interface enabling centralized system management. The MMC itself does not offer any management functionality, however it provides an environment for incorporating and accessing tools. Tools are integrated in the MMC in the form of snap-ins that allow standardized access to functions.

The MMC offers the following features:

• You can monitor and control any number of R/3 Systems and application servers with a single tool as long as they are running under Windows NT.
• Once you have configured the console, you can save the configuration in a file and easily forward it to other users.
• The dual DCOM interface ISAPControl of the new start service lets a third party use the functionality, for example, from C, Java or Visual Basic, and you can integrate it into your own tools or scripts without having to use SAP proprietary mechanisms.
• The MMC allows you to:
• Display all R/3 trace files, the system environment and SAP environment
• Display the most serious alerts in the alert tree (Transaction RZ20)
• Display the current status tree (Transaction RZ20)
• Display and acknowledge current alerts (Transaction RZ20)
• Display the R/3 syslog for a functioning, offline or malfunctioning R/3 System (Transaction SM21)
• Display the R/3 process overview (Transaction SM50)
• Display the queue statistics (dpmon)
• Start or stop all NT application servers of a system with a mouse-click
• Restart the service without having to restart the application server
• Log on to an application server
• Start analysis tools in R/3 for nodes in the alert tree
• Start the following third-party tools to manage an application server, if they are available:

• Telnet
• Windows Terminal Server Client
• pcANYWHERE
• Computer Management (only for Windows 2000)