Multiple install inc. SCCM, no network, one image

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FrozenLiquidity

[H]ard|Gawd
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Aug 28, 2007
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Quite a title, I know.

Seeing as how my career in IT is relatively young and some of these terms are over my head, I'll break it down to how I understand it, and see if anyone can point me in the right direction. While this current situation doesn't quite fall into the Networking and Security (rather, lack of networking) it might be moved. I figured this was as close as it would get to being in the right place though.

So here's the deal. Our standard deployment is done over a network (PXE, network image, all that jazz) however we're now in a situaton where we need to deploy a small number of clients to a remote location, and are unable to use the network connection there for deployment from PXE. Instead, we've got to revert to an image, but the problem with the image is that things which require unique system identifiers (and agian, feel free to correct me) like SCCM will all have the identifier associated from the image. So when that is taken and deployed to a dozen other computers, suddenly the unique ID's are no longer unique. While I'm not sure exactly what this does within SCCM yet, I think it's safe to say that it should be avoided.

The question is, how can we create an image with SCCM implemented on it for our client workstations, while retaining their uniqueness? Is there some wildcard key that can be used in this case that will prevent conflicts or assign unique ID's in a similar way that a DHCP server assigns IP addresses?

Does anyone know the way to do this? Perhaps a few links to point me in the right direction? I'm having a hard time finding information about how to do this.

Again, I apologize if this isn't as clear as it could be, or is too dumbed-down for some of you real knowledgable types. This just kind of got dumped on me and I am in way over my head. Help me out and throw me a life preserver!
 
You are correct, if you imaged a machine that had sccm and put that image on additional computers you will run into many issues. You should never put an image of one machine onto another without generalizing it. This is true for all windows installs, not just ones with sccm.


As for your issue you have two options. From your OSD Task Sequence you can create Standalone Media (fully offline, usb or dvd set, has restrictions), or Prestaged Media (image application offline / remaining steps online, hdd of machine is imaged with this ahead of time, no restrictions).

If you have a vpn connection from the remote site to the central site and and you are deploying a mostly "fat" image. By fat I mean, your image has most/all required programs already installed so there are very few task sequence steps after the image is applied. Then use Prestaged Media as it will be just like deploying an os in the office. All of the steps after applying the image are done online so things like os updates will be installed as part of the process (if you leverage that ofcourse). This features does require R3 though.

If this needs to be 100% offline or the vpn connection just does not have the bandwidth to handle any steps after the image is applied then you should use Standalone Media. All steps are performed offline and the client will do a heartbeat discovery to be detected by the server as if you where installing the client by hand. There are some restrictions to this though. You have to apply drivers as a package, you can not use an install software updates step, and you can not install software prior to applying the image.

This answer is probably a bit deep based on what you said in your post but it is as simple as I can make it. If you need help with doing either of these things I can posts some links. If you have an sccm admin on your organization send them an email first as they will know these things (or at least should).
 
I can make sense of most of it. A few terms I'm spotty on - but I can easily educate myself.

The remote site has a T1, and would probably have about a dozen computers and a few less users. Too little bandwidth to do the entire imaging process for all of them in a reasonable amount of time, but enough to ensure updates/patches and other goodies get pushed to them in the space of a weekend. So I think the former is a far better example. You've given me some good leads and some terms to look into.

The goal seems to be to get the offsite location up and running with all of this stuff, simplified to the point where a trained monkey (user) could do it. I'd be glad to dig into any links you have on the subject, so if you've got some, please share!

Thanks for the response.
 
If you are not experience in sccm you have a big learning curve up ahead. As for having the ability for a user to administer things, don't. The only thing you could possibly do that would be simple enough for users is to have optional advertisements that the user could run via run advertised programs. What I would suggest is If you have a spare workstation that is not used, setup a DP at their site. Then you will beable to manage their computers as if they were local as they would use their local DP for all files.

Here is the links I mentioned regarded setting up prestaged media:

technet link: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg294170.aspx
blog post from Chris Nackers(MVP): http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/cnac...r3-prestaged-media-setup-and-walkthrough.aspx
 
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I expect quite the learning curve. Seeing as how it's at least somewhat likely to become my lifes' work though, I'll try to get through it as best I can. No, we'd never consider letting a user administrate things, but rather than fly one of us over there at great expense, contract a local tech to image the machines. The idea of it is to get the OS and most of the programs they'll need onto the on-site systems without utilizing the limited throughput of the T1 line. Once they've got that (and a successful SCCM client working) it's just a matter of being able to remotely administrate them.

I spent some time going over those links today. Yeah, I've got a lot of learning to do, so I'm hopping to it.
 
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