Crispin Posted March 21, 2009 Posted March 21, 2009 Hi all, Just wanted to get some feedback from anyone who uses/has used SCCM on their network. I'm downloading the trial at the moment to test on my home network on a hyper-v machine. Are there any major issues or gripes people have with it? In terms of value, is it worth it? I've been trying to decipher Microsoft licensing for SCCM and am utterly confused. Would anyone be able to give a ballpark figure for how much it would cost to license a network running around 800 desktops and 200 laptops? Any thoughts would be appreciated, thanks!
AngryTechnician Posted March 21, 2009 Posted March 21, 2009 I trialled it last year, but it seemed incredibly complicated for what it did, and I never actually got our clients to start talking to it. Perhaps I was being thick, but the difficulty in getting it to work just seemed far too much effort for the benefit we would have got from it. Our NM dealt with the licensing; I seem to recall that with our existing Schools Agreement the incremental cost was quite low.
MatthewL Posted March 21, 2009 Posted March 21, 2009 We have just installed our first server, not had time to play with it yet.
imiddleton25 Posted March 22, 2009 Posted March 22, 2009 We use it here for about 80% of it functions , still learning to do more when I have time its a great tool and as we used sms 2 then sms 2003 we have had a lot experience of using it. We have a school agreement and the cost is not high. think we pay £200 for server licence and the CAL is part of our desktop pack under schols agreement.
ZeroHour Posted July 3, 2009 Posted July 3, 2009 We have a school agreement and the cost is not high. think we pay £200 for server licence and the CAL is part of our desktop pack under schols agreement. imiddleton25: What level of desktop agreement do you have? Did you have to bolt it on or were you already licensed? We are desktop schools agreement v3 level a but we dont have a sccm license yet as we are trialing it and I am looking into costs. It would be amazing if it was already part of the pack.
tmcd35 Posted July 3, 2009 Posted July 3, 2009 Am I right in thinking the SCVMM component is available separately if all you want to do is manage your Hyper-V servers? I'm looking at starting an Hyper-V role out later this year and was considering this for next year. I had it in my mind (can't remember where from) that I could get a SCVMM 2008 Workgroup Edition for about £500 to cover the 4 or 5 Hyper-V servers we'll eventually have?
Tricky_Dicky Posted July 3, 2009 Posted July 3, 2009 I've used SCCM in the past and once set up found it to be a fantastic piece of software. Few pit falls to bear in mind are the initial setup took quite a while and that was with a lot of telephone support. The second is that it uses a Database backend and so I was advised against running it on a virtual environment due to the amount of IO reads going on. But if you can afford it and set it up and then figure out the correct procedure for creating the installer packages it is very good. Rich
karlieb Posted July 24, 2009 Posted July 24, 2009 A bit late in replying to this but though I might as well anyway... If you have a School Agreement and have either of the Core CALs or the Desktop School CAL (which includes Vista, Office and Core CAL) then you will have the client device licenses for SCCM. Am I right in thinking the SCVMM component is available separately if all you want to do is manage your Hyper-V servers? I'm looking at starting an Hyper-V role out later this year and was considering this for next year. I had it in my mind (can't remember where from) that I could get a SCVMM 2008 Workgroup Edition for about £500 to cover the 4 or 5 Hyper-V servers we'll eventually have? That is correct. SCVMM Workgroup Edition can manage up to 5 physical hosts. Pricing wise then you'd be looking at around £100 (but much less if you're doing it under School Agreement). If you're going to grow past 5 hosts then pricing does go up quite a bit for Enterprise Edition. 1
craigcamacho Posted July 30, 2009 Posted July 30, 2009 Its awesome. We are using it in the school i am at and you simply plug your machines in to the network, advertise the OS and to a single machine or OU then pxe boot the clients and your away. It will do the OS, updates, software packages, put it on the domain and activate it too and saves a heck of a lot of time as you can do a lot of machines in one go. 1
Gatt Posted July 30, 2009 Posted July 30, 2009 We've used SCCM in the past and are planning to use it again this year We mainly use it for the Remote Tools but really want to get it to deploy software, OS's and WSUS too... Also looking at implementing SCOM as well..
john Posted July 30, 2009 Posted July 30, 2009 So is it really that simple to use? Plug in PXE boot and it does it all for me?
ZeroHour Posted July 31, 2009 Posted July 31, 2009 So is it really that simple to use? Plug in PXE boot and it does it all for me? Its not exactly simple to setup, but yeh thats how nice it can be once done. Windows-noob did help a lot with its guide but I am still getting my head around it. 1
Theblacksheep Posted July 31, 2009 Posted July 31, 2009 Its not exactly simple to setup, but yeh thats how nice it can be once done. Windows-noob did help a lot with its guide but I am still getting my head around it. Lots of new lingo with SCCM: Advertising, DPs etc etc.... it not the easiest thing i've setup either. Took me about 3 installs to get it working (even then I binned that and need to set it up 'for real' next time) and installing packages properly.... mind you i did pick CS4 as my test package, but it trickle installed silently and just appeared an hour later!
jc1875 Posted August 6, 2009 Posted August 6, 2009 We use it mainly of hardware inventory, WSUS and a couple of applications that wouldnt go out via Group Policy. This year i've ditched RIS and taken the jump to WDS and SCCM. Found this guide invaluable The Deployment Guys : SCCM 2007 and Microsoft Deployment Toolkit - Video Walkthrough Adding drivers etc seem much easier than RIS. We've only got 40 new desktops (HP DC7900s) to roll out this year so if it all goes pete tong then it's no biggy 4
TheScarfedOne Posted August 10, 2009 Posted August 10, 2009 I think i did a blog on this a while ago... defo check out the technet blog, and also windows noob. 1
john Posted August 10, 2009 Posted August 10, 2009 Thanks, think its something, when I get time (which isn't gonna be that soon tbh ) to have a look at this if its as good as it sounds then it could be a good step up for us
tarquel Posted September 2, 2009 Posted September 2, 2009 SCCM is fun fun fun, and yes, along with some helpful guides over at windows-noob, its pretty easy to get your head around - if it dont work the first time, scrap the lot and set it up again For those thinking that SCCM is hard, try SCOM for a challenge of getting any info that you actually want out of it. For anyone that has, gimme a shout asap cheerz Nath.
ZeroHour Posted September 2, 2009 Posted September 2, 2009 Hehe I am working with SCOM,SCDPM and SCCM right now. Loving SCOM tbh, it rocks! Create a thread with your problem and linky it to me
lufupa Posted September 3, 2009 Posted September 3, 2009 Hi ZeroHour would you be able to provide any good links to tutorials on scom & scdpm. i know windows noob has sccm stuff. cheers
gshaw Posted September 16, 2009 Posted September 16, 2009 Also try the Blogcast Repository, loads of good stuff over there, originally found it looking for SMS stuff but it's got SCCM and SCOM as well iirc The Blogcast Repository 1
robbie-w Posted January 28, 2010 Posted January 28, 2010 SCCM is definitely the way to go Put in on a 2008 R2 server and it will fly!! Have got it doing all our OS deployments and application installs. What is good is theres no real need to build images anymore(apart for our computing dept dont fancy rolling out MSDN & visual studio with it ) There is quite a high learning level involved so dont expect results straight away. http://www.windows-noob.com is a good resource to get you configured and up and running Robbie
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