SCCM Server

[noelmm]

Hi everyone,

 

I'm not sure if this is in the right place or if it should be in the server section.

 

I've been asked to look into setting up our own sccm server so that as a school we can have more control over our images and how we push software and updates out to our devices.

 

Currently our school is part of a managed service with our local authority and they provide all aspects of our network and infrastructure needs including sccm, email, backups, AD etc. if we wish to make any changes to any part of our image or create any software packages then we need to ask someone within the LA to do this for us, currently there is only 1 very busy person with the LA that has both the knowledge and the access rights to be able to do this so getting any changes made can be a very long process (often months).

 

 

I have been asked to come up with a plan of action outlining such things as hardware requirements to run the server locally ourselves as well as how we can achieve this goal while still being part of a managed service i.e. will it be possible to run our own server when there is another server on the same domain?

 

I would be grateful if anyone can provide some insight into the points below.

 

1) What hardware requirements will there be? - I could use the recommended specs for Server 2012 R2 however I'm not sure if that would be sufficient in a real world application.

 

2) Is it possible to run 2 sccm servers on the same domain? If not how would we be able to achieve our end goal of having more control (LA won't allow access to their sccm server for obvious reasons)

 

3) Apart from having more control what are the main advantages and disadvantages to having our own server as opposed to using the one provided by the LA

 

4) Learning curve - How steep is the learning curve for sccm? I currently create the software installer packages and I have always been interested in learning however I have never used it more than just an end user deploying an image to a device and accessing error logs when problems arise.

 

I'm sure there is a whole lot more to consider before looking into this project so any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

 

Regards

 

Noel

[Steve21]

The main problem I see you having is within the DNS/switches etc you need to tell the machines when they pxe to look at a certain machine for a response.

 

So if you're wanting yours and theirs to be able to build it'll be a bit odd :s Also you'd need permissions to write back to AD to add/modify machine accounts etc.

 

Again clients would need to be registered with one SCCM machine on the clients as their primary site.

 

If all you want is access to do things like that have you asked them to give you permissions? There's very restrictive roles within SCCM that they could give you without giving major access. e.g. Just application deployments, or Image management etc

 

Steve

[noelmm]

Hi Steve,

 

I've asked for the permissions to be able to deploy our own applications and I have been told it's not something they would do, I'm guessing it's so they do not have to relinquish any control also I would like to be able to create our own images and update them every few months so that any new large applications we wanted installed across the site can be part of the base build rather than pushing it out and installing it that way.

 

Noel

[Sagima]

1) My sccm server (running its own sql 2012) is CPU: 1x AMD 4234, RAM: 4x 4GB (16GB total), Disks 4x 600GB in RAID 10 (1.2TB).

I keep everything on the SCCM server and it runs fine with that - runs the latest sccm version. Is suspect I might image a bit quicker now my network is 10gb if I had a better network card in it but Im not sure if the disks are up to it anyway. 40-45 minutes to image 24 machines at once (1 lesson basically)

It gets replaced next year if my boss is willing - it's not going to be that much different though. Might go for 8 cores and double the ram (not using 1.2TB so probably get the same again unless he decides to let me have a 10gbe nic in which case ssd might be the choice.)

It was during it's 2007 days just the old exchange and sql servers when they got upgraded. This one is the first purpose built one I've had.

It also runs the cctv controller (for some reason)

 

2) yes but I've never done it - pretty sure it was discussed when I went on the 2007 and 2012 courses though. They have to be the same site I think though so youd have to stop using the lea one

 

3) well you learn another skill, I don't know if you gain much by having it onsite other than you will keep finding uses for it you might no notice when someone else is doing just what you ask for.

It can inventory everything - you can query any machine about anything you want once you get used to the query builder. My boss likes the software metering so he can ask HoDs if the piece of software noone has launched in the last 2 years is really necessary (although teachers still swear blind it is)

 

4) I found the microsoft courses helped me out a great deal but if you just want to do imaging and software deployment you can pretty much work out 90% of that in a couple of days of youtube, windows-noob and itninja and never worry about anything else.

Edited May 18, 2016 by Sagima

[Annabelle]

If the SCCM is managed by someone else, ask for access so that you can import OS, applications, etc and whatever other tasks that you need to get done.

SCCM is RBAC so they can give some or all access to SCCM.

You can install the SCCM console locally and connect to the server for any administrative work.

[noelmm]

Hi everyone,

 

Thanks for the replies. I currently have the sccm console installed on my machine so that I can add and delete machines into our collection. It's sounding like the easier option would be to get the elevated access rights, assuming they will be granted. I will need to look into this.

 

Thanks for all of the advice and feedback.

 

Noel

[Blue_Cookeh]

SCCM can be very granular in it's permissions. You ought to get onto the LA and keep forcing their hand on this, they can give you as much or as little control as they want in SCCM.