Use SCCM to support training facilities

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Use SCCM to support training facilities - 9/17/2008 5:06:04 AM

iglatz

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From: Erding, Bavaria - Germany
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Hi folks,

I'm thinking of the possibility to implement SCCM 2007 in training facilities to ease the process of re-installation of all machines for training purposes each Friday and Saturday.

Do you think that's easy to accomplish or might there be problems coming up? I know that I have to deal with different OS, hardware, applications and a lot of other stuff.

My idea is to set up collections for each of the offered trainings, define the advertisement(s) with the image and the necessary applications and then add the specific machines of the corresponding room to this collection each Friday. I'm not quite sure how to deal with advertisements that have been run already, the different names of the machines, the GUIDs and in worst case the different hardware in each of the training rooms. I'm sure there are other things that I'm just missing or haven't thought about it yet.

Any ideas are welcome what to watch out for and what's the best way to set up a working process.

Ingrid

Post #: 1

RE: Use SCCM to support training facilities - 9/17/2008 8:10:05 AM

jsandys

Posts: 551
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Joined: 3/24/2005
From: San Antonio, TX
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OSD has good solutions for all the issues that you mention. You could set a recurring advertisement to handle the advertisement issue. Also, in-place upgrades using OSD will maintain the same system name and you can merge the old and new resource records manually using the conflicting ID resolution methods of ConfigMgr. As for drivers, this is a real strength of OSD as it seemlessly incorporates a driver catalog that is used when deploying the image and allows you to make the actual image hardware agnostic.

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Jason
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(in reply to iglatz)

Post #: 2

RE: Use SCCM to support training facilities - 9/25/2008 4:14:33 AM

iglatz

Posts: 849
Score: 23
Joined: 9/21/2001
From: Erding, Bavaria - Germany
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Ok, here's the challege I got. Talked to a training facility yesterday.

Most of the trainings are official MOC courses using virtual images. But these need Windows XP as a base for the setup routine to work properly. Hardware is bought each other day, so no guarantee for same hardware. Manufacturer is the same and he delivers all required drivers on CD because they're not available via Internet. Hardware moves in between the different training rooms and even different training locations. In worst case, each machine in one room is a different hardware.

How to deal with that???? Vista cannot be used, Microsoft hasn't changed the setup routine for the courses yet. Image can't be used because there's too many different hardware around. Unattended setup will be ok, but what about all the unknown drivers that are delivers via CD? I know that I can add drivers in the unattended.txt, but I would either have to prepare one setup routine to include all possible drivers locations or define different unattend.txt for the different hardware. But because they never know which hardware type can be found where, more than one unattend.txt wouldn't be a proper solution. The copy action for the virtual PC file would at least be an easy part, but there's a setup afterwards that needs to be executed. Don't have a clue about this either.

Anybody out there who's responsible to setup trainings and can shed some light into the processes? Tipps are gladly welcome but I doubt that I can actually ease the setup of the training facilities in this case.

Ingrid

(in reply to jsandys)

Post #: 3

RE: Use SCCM to support training facilities - 9/25/2008 11:25:43 AM

jsandys

Posts: 551
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Joined: 3/24/2005
From: San Antonio, TX
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The driver catalog addresses this issue. You simply import drivers into ConfigMgr OSD and these are "dynamically" added to images as they are deployed and made available to Windows during either a full setup or a mini-setup. Import drivers is a very simple task and driver injection is a strength of OSD.

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Jason
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(in reply to iglatz)

Post #: 4

RE: Use SCCM to support training facilities - 9/26/2008 2:11:09 AM

iglatz

Posts: 849
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Joined: 9/21/2001
From: Erding, Bavaria - Germany
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Hi Jason,

I thought, using images in conjunction with Windows XP wouldn't work because of the different hardware. So if I get it right, I can create an image for Windows XP, import all necessary drivers of the different hardware models into the driver catalog and they get added during image setup.
How does the hardware know which drivers are sufficient? I think I'll have to rely on a good plug&play detection for this hardware. If those drivers aren't plug&play? I know that the manufacturer is not a big company, but a small one getting all the parts from all over the world. So I'm not sure what to expect.
I'll see if they give me a chance to test it.
Thanks.

Ingrid

(in reply to jsandys)

Post #: 5

RE: Use SCCM to support training facilities - 9/26/2008 9:15:34 AM

jsandys

Posts: 551
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Joined: 3/24/2005
From: San Antonio, TX
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There are two task types for "injecting" drivers in ConfigMgr OSD: Auto Apply Drivers and Apply Driver Package. The Auto Apply runs a plug and play detection and copies the matching driver files to the system. Apply driver package simply copies driver the files in a specified driver package to the system without any plug and play. For both tasks, the drivers are copied to system folders are added to sysprep.inf or unatttend.txt (or unattend.xml for Vista) and if deploying an image are also added to the driver catalog of the target OS by modifying the registry on the deployed image. Then, when Windows setup or mini-setup runs its own p&p hardware detection, the drivers copied down can be used and installed by Windows just like they were built into Windows.

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Jason
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(in reply to iglatz)

Post #: 6

RE: Use SCCM to support training facilities - 9/26/2008 9:39:34 AM

iglatz

Posts: 849
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Joined: 9/21/2001
From: Erding, Bavaria - Germany
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This sounds good to me, thanks for the detailed explanation. Haven't had the time yet to go through all the documentation of OSD but definitely have to give it a try.
I just got a new information that they plan to use App-V to set up the machines. For me, this sounds like having the whole virtual PC environment for the training class in an App-V box which then runs on a physical box that's not important any more regarding plug&play drivers. I don't know if this will work out properly, they've already started the testing. Need to talk to them sooner or later.

Ingrid

(in reply to jsandys)

Post #: 7

RE: Use SCCM to support training facilities - 9/26/2008 9:54:06 AM

jsandys

Posts: 551
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Joined: 3/24/2005
From: San Antonio, TX
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Actually, App-V is a great solution for your specific problem and anyone who finds themselves reimaging machines a lot, but it doesn't eliminate the need to roll out the OS in the first place. Also, with R2, you can deploy and pre-stage the App-V applications using ConfigMgr so ConfigMgr should still play a role.

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Jason
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Post #: 8