inTune and Local Servers

[garethEds]

Evening All,

 

I'm researching into InTune and am wondering if you can use it alongside on-site servers. We have a print server (PaperCut) and a management server (used for softwrae deployment via pdq deploy/inventory). If I prepare/deploy machines using inTune can they still make use of the on-site servers somehow?

 

I also have mapped drives to fileservers that would need to continue.

 

I'm looking to move away from MDT. We've already moved to WuFB and that is all good.

 

Thanks

 

Gareth

[jslate1980]

You could go down the co-management route, but you would need a vpn to connect to your domain to authenticate. If your requirements are just papercut and software deployment then personally I don't think I would bother. Papercut works with intune. Just use print deploy to push out printers and if you have staff with access to departments for printing you will also require the deployment of the papercut client. As for software deployment there are a couple of options.

1. Use intune to push out apps, which there are many tutorials on.

2. Look at the free repositories such as Windows package manager to deploy apps.

3. There are some thirdparty paid solutions for intune like patchmypc.

[Katy]

If you want your devices configured using Intune, set up with Autopilot perhaps, you can have them either Azure AD joined, or hybrid joined. Hybrid joined means they will be joined to your on-premises AD domain and also Azure AD registered. Assuming your devices are on the same network as your local servers, you wouldn't need a VPN. If you are using synced identities (Azure AD Connect, syncing your local AD users to Azure AD) then Azure AD joined devices can seamlessly access your local AD joined servers (if logged on using username/password - if using Windows Hello, further config is needed).

 

There isn't really a "logon script" equivalent in Intune, so if you are wanting drives (and printers) to map you are probably best off with hybrid join, so you can still manage using Group Policy (as well as Intune profiles). If you're thinking about moving the drives to the cloud at some point perhaps look at doing that before this - at my last school we moved the home drives to OneDrive (which appears in File Explorer via the OneDrive Sync Client, easy to configure through Intune), and all the shared drives were moved to SharePoint and Teams - colleagues were shown how to add these to File Explorer via the sync button. We didn't automate this as we were trying to push towards using the browser over syncing everything.

 

In terms of device deployment - Intune doesn't really do the whole "imaging a device" like MDT would. It uses the existing OS install (so for new devices, whatever it comes out of the factory running - so don't buy devices with Home Edition) and applies settings to that. Refreshing the device, it simply uses the Windows 10/11 "Reset this PC" feature in the background.

[IKWeb]

If you still have onsite servers you need access to - Then you are not really ready for a full intune environment.

 

Taking what you have said above - I would

 

1) Move from Papercut - To Hive - Have this running on over 40 primary schools and working well.

 

2) Software deployment - Move this 100% to intune, yes it's a little flakey, but it works fine once you know what hoops you have to jump through.

 

You can then get rid of the onsite servers, and save some cash at the same time

[chaplic]

You absolutely can go full intune for PC and access on premise file servers, as long as you’re logging into the PC with an AD account that’s synced to the cloud (if you’re using windows hello that’s doable but more of a faff). As others Ive said I’d look to move to intune to deploy software to get full benefit and cloud file, onedrive for 1:1 users especially is a no-brainer and group file shares moved to part of a team