PC Deployment

HaZe71

HaZe71

HaZe71

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Couldn't think where to post this, so its here.

Anyone work in a large organisation that deploys PCs to their workforce?

What we currently do is get the PC from the supplier and put it in storage, then put our image on it and dish it out to site when needed, once on site and connected to the network it installs bundles relevant to that site.

Does anyone else do this or something totally different?

Ta.
 
nope - large corporations get the third party to apply the image or just order bare metal machines and apply the image themselves. Then it goes to the site and once awakened on the network the Group Policy in the AD takes over and does it thing.
 
Thanks. Can someone move this then please?

Question is, I want a more effecient way of deploying numbers of PCs to a site with our own image on and wanted to know how other organisations tackle this?
 
Sorry, to be clear, its the hardware that needs deploying with our image on..other updates get installed when the PC is connected to the network.
 
It depends no a lot of factors.

Are the sites the same company or different companies?

Ive used sccm and vanilla MDT/WDS to deploy windows 7. I tend to use a thick image as i find deploying software post image deployment is slower and troublesome especially without sccm.

Using mdt/wds we can image new desktop over gigabit pxe in 20mins and ready to log in fully configured.
 
Same company, just taken on a load of new sites. Current process is just taking too much time and resource.

Does using SCCM imply the PC is on the network already with an OS for it to reimage the machine?

Using a 3rd party may an option but that would come down to cost.

Manufacturers could install a thin image and get it delivered to site, installed on the network then SCCM'd with a thick image?... is that what your implying anything?
 
The ideal solution for your environment then imo. Would be to have a sccm that deploys a semi thick image, with just the applications that everyone uses like office for example. Then based on specific criteria, be it site location, department etc, you deploy the rest of the software post deployment with packages.

It would depend on the extent of the software differences between sites. To save money you could do a thick image using mdt/wds and then just install most of the software.

The way i do is using mdt/wds and thick image, then for HR and marketing that have non general applications we just install those manually for the small amount of staff that have that software. Manually with an install script post deployment. The benefit is that mdt/wds is free. The down side is that if we provision a hr or marketing pc we have to remember which additional software is required. We just have a spreadsheet with a list.

WE use roaming profiles as well, which means for most of the staff we can hotswap their desktop during the day within a matter of mins and image a new pc within 20 mins.

With sccm you can do offline deployment, ie from a usb stick. But over the network is best. But if you want to only install the relevant software (from sccm packages) once the pc is plugged in at site. Then you would need to set up your sccm so that it works across multiple sites, which is a big job if not already in place and if just for deployment purposes could be ott.

Considering your requirements your options are limited. You may be forced to have one location (like a head office) where you image the pcs using mdt/wds and then from there at each site set up gpo that automatically installs software specific to the site once its on site.

If there difference between sites requirements are minmal and just domain specific configuration and not software differences. then i would just deploy one thick image using mdt/wds and have gpo modify the image to work with the different sites when its turned on.
 
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Appreciate your responses.

We ideally wanted to move away from one location to image for deployment, as the new sites are spread all over the country.

20 mins is fast for a reimage, what if you have multiple machines to reimage at the same site? Does this increase the reimage time? Sorry i'm not that au fait with SCCM.
 
20mins is for thick image. Thin image deployment is always much slower because it has to install all the software post deployment. So while the deployment may be 10mins it spends the next two hours install all the software and rebooting 20 times etc.

If the sites are already linked together and there is a budget for it then go with a multisite sccm.

But if they are not already linked together and no budget for it. I think you have two options you can either set up wds/mdt at each site and configure them indepdently, you could even use the same wim/image by taking it to the other sites by car or post. The other option is to install wds/mdt or sccm at one site only and then instead of using pxe, you put the image on to a self contained usb stick and duplicate that usb to each site. You would then boot off the usb at each site to deploy the image. Down side to that is you could not use sccm package deployment from usb sticks i don't think. But you could set up gpo software packages as an alterantive.

I would not recommend doing more than one image at a time because it will only double the time it takes to do one image, well generally. But it is possible.

What we did at our site was we imaged all the desktop pcs one at a time. We could do like 20 a day for example. But as we were replacing existing hardware as well, we imaged the pcs and then weeks later we did the actual physical deployment to the user.
 
HaZe71 said:
Does using SCCM imply the PC is on the network already with an OS for it to reimage the machine?
Click to expand...

No. SCCM can PXE boot unknown PCs into a customised Windows PE environment which then deploys a task sequence with the image.

We take our PCs out of the box, set a couple of BIOS options then press F12 and click next a couple of times. About an hour later it's done.

I've set it up to use a single thick image for all our machine types as it's quicker. The task sequence uses WMI queries to install the correct driver packs and utility software for all the known hardware.
 
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We are in the process of deploying a tool called Columbus from Brainware in Germany / Switzerland. Does everything SCCM does but for a fraction of the price, plus it does third party updates. SCCM is just soooo expensive, and to be fair, I thought Columbus worked better.
 
One company i did some contracting for used a very slick method.
They would purchase a pc with a image already installed, this image would ask for a few settings, or if you had a USB stick it could contain a preset and the whole install would be automated with the exception of the name (much like windows unattended.xml). the image would also contain the applications, but the clever bit, it would reference the network or USB stick first for any newer versions of the apps/config or even bios.

Each site had its own local copy of the main network share and config file to make sure the pc went into the correct ou ect. but you could tailor it further, for site specific applications but for the most sites they managed with the default which worked pretty well.

Basically any local user could install there own PC without much of a 2nd thought of what was actually going on, and if they had it connected to the network or usb stick it would be fully upto date.

I tried doing something similar for another client using WDS/batch files ect but never got it working as well as they did but to be fair they were a global company.
 
I think thats the way it needs to be done LizardKing. Just need to find the right vendor to supply PCs with our image on, in a timely fashion.

Will also be checking out Columbus.
 
Most of the big vendors will install your image at built time ... for a fee. Speak to your account rep.

The main issue is lead time with the vendor if the hardware specification changes so the image needs updating.
 
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