beancole Posted June 24, 2015 Posted June 24, 2015 (edited) Hi all, I am soon going to upgrade our last server 2003r2 to server 2012. the main role of this will be a secondary DC,DHCP,DNS etc. (the basic stuff) I have been using fog for the last few years mainly as I create an image and I can deploy it within 20 mins this has simplified things. However its becoming more complicated with drivers etc meaning I require multiple images every time motherboard dies and I have to replace it with a slightly different one, its still a problem even with sysprep. I want to install the WDS role to deploy OS's over the network with all the associated software. My first question is does WDS install all the software exe's aswell as the OS and all the relevent drivers. Do I also need to install system centre 2012 and does this come as part of server 2010 or is there an additional cost? Also will I be required to have multiple images or will one do and will the server decide which drivers are needed for each type of machine? Edited June 24, 2015 by beancole
sted Posted June 24, 2015 Posted June 24, 2015 all wds BY ITSELF without MDT does is deploy a wim file to a pc (and appropriate drivers if you add them to the wim sorry its been a while since i used wds only) so if its in the image the pcs gets it. Add mdt to that and it can do silent installs or tbh anything you can script it can do upon deploy you can even if its worth it to you (i didnt find it was) get it to if a pc has mas address x call it this install this set of drivers and this software
mikeyd101 Posted June 24, 2015 Posted June 24, 2015 Hey i'm just moving the other way wds/mdt to fog, mainly because our builds are pretty set and we have lots of the same type. I mostly use MDT but use WDS to PXE boot machines to a winPE image. The problem I found with MDT is it requires all the network drivers embeded in the winPE image and if you dont have them it takes a while to notify you it can't connect to the image server, then you have to find net drivers install to mdt and rebuild winpe image. My overall aim is to move to sccm, but its hard to just implement that into a production environment with no experience of it (plus im nervous of AD schema changes), and no available server. I talked to MS when we went to a conference about licenses and were on a open value sub with some kind of client cal bundle, which includes sccm so that entitles us to sccm server.
sted Posted June 24, 2015 Posted June 24, 2015 Hey i'm just moving the other way wds/mdt to fog, mainly because our builds are pretty set and we have lots of the same type. I mostly use MDT but use WDS to PXE boot machines to a winPE image. The problem I found with MDT is it requires all the network drivers embeded in the winPE image and if you dont have them it takes a while to notify you it can't connect to the image server, then you have to find net drivers install to mdt and rebuild winpe image. My overall aim is to move to sccm, but its hard to just implement that into a production environment with no experience of it (plus im nervous of AD schema changes), and no available server. I talked to MS when we went to a conference about licenses and were on a open value sub with some kind of client cal bundle, which includes sccm so that entitles us to sccm server. well yes it does require network drivers to deploy over a network but as long as every time you add a new pc type to mdt to rebuild your boot image it shouldnt be an issue really (if you leave it for ages say until a pc fails to boot) then it takes a long time to add a lot of drivers to the boot image
beancole Posted June 24, 2015 Author Posted June 24, 2015 when you install WDS and stick your OS's in can you deploy them through the MDT console? i.e. can I add a mac address tell it to install windows 7 then the list of applications for a group for example.
sted Posted June 24, 2015 Posted June 24, 2015 if you put the time in yes it just cant start the task itself if you need 0 touch ie click on a pc from a server console and it rebuilds rather than going to it and starting the process then you need sccm. When using mdt all wds is is a boot environment mdt does everything else
beancole Posted June 25, 2015 Author Posted June 25, 2015 Been watching some videos and WDS looks TERRIBLE!!! Does it actually allow me to reimage a machine from the server or do I have to go and sit at it.
sted Posted June 25, 2015 Posted June 25, 2015 Been watching some videos and WDS looks TERRIBLE!!! Does it actually allow me to reimage a machine from the server or do I have to go and sit at it. sit at it. all wds by itself does is sit there and server boot images then facilitate file transfer. Its not disigned to be a zero touch (rebuild a pc from a server) solution (nor is mdt) for that the ms product you require is sccm. Bear in mind wds is pretty much just used as a way to get other deployment tech to pcs and as above for anything other than a very basic setup its been shuffled into being part of mdt/sccm rather than a stand alone products almost
beancole Posted June 25, 2015 Author Posted June 25, 2015 Found something that claims to do nearly everything. Smart Deploy claims it can make one image for all machines. it does it by creating an image from windows disk and it separates all the drivers for different models. it does its own sysprep and applys the drivers needed. you can then add the image file to WDS so it applys with PXE boot. still no availablity to to deploy from the server. I am enquireing to see if it will deploy with fog. Also lookijg at pricing will probably be a non starter if it costs too much.
sted Posted June 25, 2015 Posted June 25, 2015 Found something that claims to do nearly everything. Smart Deploy claims it can make one image for all machines. it does it by creating an image from windows disk and it separates all the drivers for different models. it does its own sysprep and applys the drivers needed. you can then add the image file to WDS so it applys with PXE boot. still no availablity to to deploy from the server. I am enquireing to see if it will deploy with fog. Also lookijg at pricing will probably be a non starter if it costs too much. dosent sound rhat different from mdt
SHimmer45 Posted June 25, 2015 Posted June 25, 2015 im a fan of MDT, having moved over from ghost, working towards getting it working with as little user input as possible & using WDS to PXE boot the clients. worth the effort imo
beancole Posted June 26, 2015 Author Posted June 26, 2015 cancel smart deploy its perfect but it has the perfect price too...... They should wear a striped jumper and a mask. It looks like I'm just going to have a million images as MDT is utter rubbish. There is no where near enough automation.
Steve21 Posted June 26, 2015 Posted June 26, 2015 cancel smart deploy its perfect but it has the perfect price too...... They should wear a striped jumper and a mask. It looks like I'm just going to have a million images as MDT is utter rubbish. There is no where near enough automation. Why not just use a base image, and driver selection groups? Steve
SHimmer45 Posted June 26, 2015 Posted June 26, 2015 cancel smart deploy its perfect but it has the perfect price too...... They should wear a striped jumper and a mask. It looks like I'm just going to have a million images as MDT is utter rubbish. There is no where near enough automation. the idea of MDT imo is to reduce the number of images (as the main reason why you would have different images is for PC with differing hardware) im pretty much using what MDT class as hybrid images which contain my core software and any interface tweaks and the like are captured in my reference image, we have 6 ICT suites which have different machine types and one image serves all of these, its not Zero touch. what level of automation are you looking for, full zero touch is i think going to require SCCM.
Arthur Posted June 26, 2015 Posted June 26, 2015 It looks like I'm just going to have a million images as MDT is utter rubbish. There is no where near enough automation. I'm not sure where you got that idea?
sted Posted June 26, 2015 Posted June 26, 2015 (edited) cancel smart deploy its perfect but it has the perfect price too...... They should wear a striped jumper and a mask. It looks like I'm just going to have a million images as MDT is utter rubbish. There is no where near enough automation. no I have 1 mdt image that's has updates and office 2013 baked in and use it on multiple pcs on multiple domains I just add drivers to mdt itself and let it take care of it. I literally have one image (ring) to rule them all (well win7 enterprise) and apart from automatically starting the rebuild you can make mdt do everything for you it just depends how much time you want to put in. Ive had it so mi connected a pc up with mac address x and after it was pxe booted manually iirc I did nowt but hit the finish button (you can remove that as well but I like to see it) Edited June 26, 2015 by sted
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