Cliff Hobbs at myITforum.com

MMS - SY03 - SCCM Deployment Part 1

Attended this session and made the following notes:

SCCM Improvements

• Multi-threaded Hardware Inventory
• Object replication to Secondaries eliminated
• Multi-threaded file dispatch manager on Management Point (used to transfer data from the MP to the Site Server)
• Software Update Management reporting now uses State Messages instead of Hardware Inventory

Site Optimisation

• Backup now uses VSS technology so it’s very fast
• Makes a shadow copy of the site DB and then the copy is backed up

Maximum number of Clients for a Central 200,000 compared to 100,000 for SMS 2003

Server Configuration

• OS & SQL – RAID 1 drives
• Inboxes – RAID 1, 5, or 10
• SQL DB – RAID 1 or 10
• SQL Log – RAID 1
• SQL TempDB – RAID 1

SMS 2003 Gotcha’s

• Client deployment not bandwidth aware
• No visible progress of the client installation
• Firewall issues with XP/ Vista
• All client binaries downloaded whether needed or not

SCCM

• Single binary for client deployment, maintenance and removal
• Pre-requisite checker
• BITS aware download of binaries
• Client downloads manifest first of what’s required and only what’s required is downloaded

Improved reporting for Client deployment

• Step-by-step status per client
• Client install success/ fail
• Client assignment success/ fail
• Requires fallback status point

Client Deployment Changes

• True AD integration – Client settings now published in AD – no longer need long command line with switches
• ADM template can be populated with Site Settings which can be used to update AD on a certain Domain, OU, etc.
• CCMSetup.msi new package for installing the Client

Software Update Point – WSUS – Deploy SMS Client from this new Site System

• SMS Client can be published to WSUS as a required update like any other MS update

Client Push – Site Server machine account is allowed

Logon installation – high rights only – No CAPINST for low rights installations

OU based Site assignment – If machine in this OU gets assigned to SMS Site “CPH”

Client Deployment Tips

• Gradual deployment
• Start small and check everything is working e.g. distribute a Package

Site Configuration Settings

• Daily Heartbeat Discovery to initially track client numbers
• Daily software update scans for quicker initial scan results
• Client approval setting = automatic for all domain joined clients
• If upgrading uncheck the box that says only V4 Clients in this Site

BITS 2.5 prerequisite – might require a reboot if installed in pre-Vista box

Recommended Site Roles – Specify the Fallback Status Point (FSP) in the Client installation command line (or Registry)

Windows 2003 SP1 or later required for Site Servers

Upgrades

In Place or Side by Side

In Place

OSD and DM will need to be uninstalled and re-installed – BUT data kept for Packages created in those.  However, these “old” Packages will be classed as legacy and will need to be migrated to the new version of OSD

Side by Side – Existing Clients re-assigned to new SCCM Site

Top down

Consider adding new SCCM Central Site above current SMS 2003 Central to give big picture and to allow the whole environment to be managed using the SCCM console

Run /testdbupgrade on an offline copy of each Sites DB before upgrade it

Run the pre-requisite checker on all Sites

Hierarchy Considerations

• Top down
• AD Schema Modifications
• Backward compatible with SMS 2003 SP1+
• Available as .EXE and a documented .LDF file

Interoperability

• SMS 2003 sites can report to SCCM Sites
• SMS 2003 Clients assigned to SCCM Sites
• SCCM Clients can roam to SMS 2003 Sites

Admin UI

• SMS 2003 Site Settings require SMS 2003 Admin UI
• Secondaries limited so upgrade to V4 ASAP

SMS 2003

• No Legacy Client support/ interoperability
• No Standard Security support/ interoperability
• Provide Patch/ feature level interoperability for Chid Sites and SMS 2003 Clients in the Hierarchy

SMS 2.0

• No SMS 2.0 interoperability support provided at all
• No direct upgrade to SCCM 2007

Security Considerations

• No support for Standard Security Mode
• Per-site System Management accounts
• Admin UI needs remote DCOM permissions added to the “SMS Admins” group
• Secure Key Exchange

Site Modes

Mixed Mod

• Equivalent to SMS 2003 “Advanced Security” plus security enhancements
• Available for new installs and Site upgrades
• Interoperable with SMS 2003 SP2+ Sites

Native Mode

• Full mutual auth using PKI based machine certificates
• Avail for new install and existing SCCM mixed mode Sites
• Required for Internet based Client management
• Only for new installs not upgrades