The first mistake that almost everyone makes is not understanding the differences in terminology from 1.2 and 2.0. Depending on your domain structure(s), trust and what have you is depending on how best to design your SMS infrustructure. A bad intial deployment has turned many companies away from SMS (I specialize in cleaning up others messes). If you truley have concerns, please involve Microsoft, their support is wonder. And as a side, go with SQL 2000 and Windows 2000 Advanced server with SP 4.