Joseph Hinkle at MyITForum.com

Presented by Michael Niehaus Continued from part 3. Start in part 1.

• Why be dynamic?
  • Computer differences
  • User expectations
  • Simplify administration - minimize the number of task sequences
  • How? - Gather: preferably automatic; process: translate as required, review in advance if possible; consume: query during deployment
  
  
• What data sources?
  • MDT database - manually configure site, make/model, role, computer data - integrate ConfigMgr inventory to reinstall apps
  • ConfigMgr 2007 - Asset inventory, Manually configured computer and collection variables
  • Other sources - Asset management system, custom databases, web services, Ask user (wizard-based)
  • Use the best for you, could be multiple
  
  
• What is most important?
  • Usually list of apps to install on each computer
  • Basic requirements - identify what is installed, packages for each application, map of installed to reinstalled
  • Lots of other variables- see MDT configuration reference guide and ConfigMgr "OSD Task Sequence Variables"
  
  
• Task Sequence flow
  • Computer downloads policy
  • Task sequence begins executing with the first step - all steps can see and modify global variables
  • Collection variable challenges - for new computers, no inventory to query on; for new computers, object must replicate up to the site owning the collection before it can be added; no concept of a list; manually defined
  • Computer variable challenges - must be defined on the site owning the computer; do not replicate up of down; cannot be used in collection query rules; no lists; manually defined one at a time or scripted using custom script
  • Local variables challenges- some can be promoted to global; overriding global would affect all instances of the same type of step; some lists are numerically suffixed while others are comma-delimited
  • MDT database challenges - another database to maintain; maintained manually or with custom scripts; typically centralized; security challenges - not in domain when in PE; ADO required; MDT rules are usually "first value wins"
  
  
• MDT database details
  • can configure site settings, make/model, computer, role
  • general settings, applications to install, administrator group members, roles to add
  • Use deployment workbench MMC to configure
  • Queries to database are performed by Gather step, add rules to CustomSettings.ini
  • ZTI gather puts the values into variables
  • PackageMapping table - associates packages with Add/Remove Programs inventory
  • RetrievePackages stored procedure - uses inventory to select all packages to reinstall using the package mapping table - results in auto installation with optional upgrades
  
  
• Computer replacements: When querying database, use old computer MAC address
• Instead of ARP, use Asset Intelligence data - modify both above to look at that
• ConfigMgr Database details
  • Collections can be created based on site, make/model, role
  • Settings can be specified on the collections
  • for new computers, it would be a manual add
  • Computer settings can be specified directly on the computer object, but only at the site the computer reports to
  • Different objects - multiple independent lists for multiple collections each with its own prefix; merged at time of deployment; ZTICoalesce.vbs merges all together