How do you build servers

Showboat

Showboat

Showboat

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I have seen a variety of ways to do it:

1.) Tivoli provisioning manager - was excellent and fast but took an enourmous amount of effort to keep things in order.

You could build a server in 30mins, and have it completely operational with only a few drag and clicks of a mouse.

2.) HP altiris currently using this in new job, but i'm not happy at the time it takes.
Takes about 30mins to build a server and then a fair bit of messing about with IP addresses / software specific setups, can take another 1.5 hours to get it finished off.

3.) The old mount an iso and build it from the start!

So how do you build yours? I need to get up to speed with Altiris, as i haven't used it in about 8 years and i'm sure it can do a whole lot more than what i am doing with it!

In a job where we are expected to knock out a large quantity of servers on a monthly basis (Mixture of physical DL360's, blades BL485's and VMware), and i want to get the process refined.. every minute counts, so any tips will be considered!
 
Currently moving to SCCM2012 OSD from manual DVD method after seeing what it can do with a desktop. No good for Linux servers I imagine but for Windows there is very little it can't do.
 
I work for a large company, we do it in the most stupid, time comsuming, difficult way the most stupid inexpreinced member of staff can invent while drink

its company policy to make the system drive too small

I think the general procedure is to get an under spec server, create partitions 50% small than required then beg someone to bring a CD in from home because we threw all our media away ebcause it was a security risk. then generally jsut bish bash bosh do what ever seems like a good idea at the time...

once done you document everything that no one cares about and exclude vital information such as anything useful.

a project manager usually spends 6 months getting a serial number then lose it... so we just use an old one..
 
Haha i was expecting all these ingenious ways to deploy software that i would never have thought of!

Good to see big companies are the same no matter which one you work for!
 
SoundsGood said:
Currently moving to SCCM2012 OSD from manual DVD method after seeing what it can do with a desktop. No good for Linux servers I imagine but for Windows there is very little it can't do.
Click to expand...

Last company i worked for was about to start using sccm2012, but they got in a 3rd party to set it up...... Great way for the staff to learn a product! :rolleyes:
I'll ask around and maybe setup something in a test environment.
 
Absolute mixture; a network install from clonezilla (we have a clean image available at all times with the latest updates, patches etc). Personally I prefer a clean DVD / USB slipstreamed install with the latest updates and patches. It allows for more customisation on install, if I'm time limited a network install.

We keep things clean and don't like messy images from SCCM (We HAD to use custom modules that were built especially for us and they were terrible - BSODS usually occurred in stage 3 of the installs). Not a fault of SCCM but the way in which the modules were written (very poorly).

If time permits a manual install, if not network install + rename of server and hey presto.
 
Showboat said:
Last company i worked for was about to start using sccm2012, but they got in a 3rd party to set it up...... Great way for the staff to learn a product! :rolleyes:
I'll ask around and maybe setup something in a test environment.
Click to expand...

Beware if you're going to use the full suite it takes ages to set up, although less so in a test environment as you're not risking company wide reboots or formatted drives if you make a mistake.. :p

Also you'll need a decent text box as the Config Manager server requires 16GB of RAM minimum but if you put VMM on there as well for example it will eat it all up very quickly.
 
SCCM 2007R3 Custom OSD Deployments with MDT UDI Interface where manual intervention is required 80% builds are zero touch other than a quick PXE boot.

I must however say it was shocking before hand! We are in the process of moving the SCCM 2012. Currently using SCOM 2012 for monitoring an excellent suite of tools
 
We have Bladelogic in use on some accounts but not in general. Mainly mount an ISO and then use a kickstart file for most Linux installs (followed by a scripted hardening package to lock it down).
 
For virtual servers - we have templates setup. We can have a live server up and running in under 5 minutes for both Linux and Windows.

We use SCCM for desktop OS deployment, but haven't bothered with server deployment as of yet. We deploy so few physicals now that we just haven't taken the time to set it all up!
 
York said:
For virtual servers - we have templates setup. We can have a live server up and running in under 5 minutes for both Linux and Windows.

We use SCCM for desktop OS deployment, but haven't bothered with server deployment as of yet. We deploy so few physicals now that we just haven't taken the time to set it all up!
Click to expand...

Same here.
 
PXE boot // SCCM // Templates

The initial install is easy tbh its the configuration afterwards that should really be the question here.

We use CFENGINE.
 
PXE boot here, all our hosting servers (Centos/Ubutnu/Debian/Windows 2k3/2k8/2k8R2) are built unattended via network.

Its taken hundreds if man hours to get the system working as it does not and there have been lots of teething problems along the way but its effortless and very quick now - can roll out a fully up-to-date Centos 6.3 server in about 10mins and a Win2k8 R2 server with all updates, MSE etc as well as set a bunch of custom params including password settings etc in about 50mins (30mins alone is the Windows update process!).
 
York said:
For virtual servers - we have templates setup. We can have a live server up and running in under 5 minutes for both Linux and Windows.

We use SCCM for desktop OS deployment, but haven't bothered with server deployment as of yet. We deploy so few physicals now that we just haven't taken the time to set it all up!
Click to expand...

Ditto, except we use altiris for desktops
 
101001101 said:
PXE boot // SCCM // Templates

The initial install is easy tbh its the configuration afterwards that should really be the question here.

We use CFENGINE.
Click to expand...

o_O why not just use ConfigMgr to do your config seeing as you are deploying with it...
 
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