gshaw

I guess they must be the platinum master edition versions to frame and put on the wall once you've burnt your 1000th Windows installation disc

SCCM wins every time for me, once I've got my image set up and captured I just sit down, click a few times to target which machines and want and let them get on with it. Complete reporting straight out the box so you know what's done and what isn't with no need to start anything manually on the client. Add that to all the other systems management and software deployment goodies you get with the product and low price on EES you can't lose imo

Microsoft System Centre Configuration Manager System Center Configuration Manager | Server Desktop Management Complete management of all your servers \ desktops (including imaging). Cheap as chips if you're on Microsoft EES licensing and extremely effective. Does take a bit of learning initially but once you get used to it there's so much you can do. Might be worth waiting for the new 2012 version that's should be out very soon

CLI on the server itself would be OK if the remote management tools cover everything we need to do. Memorising huge lines of Powershell code to do mundane tasks that can be achieved with 2 mouse clicks doesn't seem to make the OS more efficient to me... giving choice is one thing but any massive shift from one extreme to the other isn't a good idea. Reference: Exchange 2007... most of the GUI ended up being put back after complaints when it was mainly Powershell

If starting from scratch I'd invest in SCCM

EES with Software Assurance \ Enterprise CALs = win If you factor in the extras you get with it that can replace other systems (anti-spam, AV etc) it looks even better value plus you're always as close to the cutting edge of new releases as you wish to be!

Hmmm as I'm sitting here fiddling with the SCCM 2007 install I've done for admin machines I'm wondering if I should just jump to 2012 and be done with it... our other network is stable on 2007 for now so this could be a good way of getting familiar with it before moving across... decisions decisions!

I'll be there

So it's ribbonised SCCM

Well this is a handy thread as I need to do exactly the same thing! We've got Paxton at the moment, staff cards printed and details set up in the database but no door readers as yet. We also have Konica Minolta copiers, currently using bio authentication (not fingerprint) but want to replace with cards as it's not 100% reliable when hands are cold etc I know Paxton cards are proprietary so looks like HID is the way to go, this for the copier... Konica Minolta Proximity Card Authentication. AU-201H Security Device Konica Minolta Proximity Card Authentication. AU-202H Security Device And then HID readers for the door controllers Access Control UK - Net2 range - Proximity HID™ readers As mentioned above the two systems don't integrate but provided that they're reading the same frequency cards and same bit depth it should just be a matter of associating the token with each system and away we go? Only other qu I've got is how many people are running the Paxton management software on a virtual server? I've got it up there at the moment but apparently it's not fully supported due to the packet forwarding going on at hypervisor level... can't see why it shouldn't work but would feel more warm fuzzies if I hear of it working successfully elsewhere

I never liked the Windows Update facility within SMS 2003 and still don't like it in SCCM either. I've kept WSUS for pushing out updates and ignored those areas in SCCM... imo it's one area that didn't actually make life any easier so left well alone

Any pizzas from the Edugeek stand this year?

How much different are you finding it to 2007 from an OS deployment point of view? Looks vaguely similar in the installation screenshots I've seen but more importantly does it still require package files stored twice as a source and distribution point?

Interesting point and one that in theory could hurt us but hasn't as yet, remember thinking something similar a while back as re-imaging a system that's completed a Task Sequence is a bit of a pain as well...

Just tinkering with my virtualised SCCM server today to provide a more robust method of deploying Office 2010 (and eventually 7) but looking around 2012 RC has been out for a while so wondering if anyone has taken the jump? I tend to avoid these major new releases until I've had a chance to play with it on a test network as SCCM in its current guise is working well for us but does look like 2012 has some nifty new features

I've seen the same thing mentioned but we've got 0.25m cables in our cabs and working fine

Look at the serial number, is the board an R2 or original release (newer ones have R2 after the SB680 part of the code). The older boards (circa 2006) seem to have issues with alignment, just be glad if you can draw vertical lines down the right hand side! Btw if you're doing firmware updates Steljes recommend connecting a USB cable directly to the board i.e. don't use junction boxes, wall sockets etc... never had issues before I knew of this but best to be safe than sorry!

If you don't want to be shuffling USB drives use WDS over the network... Windows Deployment Services (WDS) - www.windows-noob.com Or there's the open-source FOG product but others will be able to tell you a lot more on that front, I'm an MS imaging fan myself

Proliant DL380 all the way We've got 3 of them, 36GB RAM each running VMWare and they're lovely bits of kit. If you can find the extra £££ to get the 380s over the 360s you've got a bit more expansion potential if you need to add more NICs etc later on. Also seem to run a bit quieter but don't quote me on that! Again if you have space \ budget replicated SANs would be ideal for DR, if you go with Veeam as your backup solution you could add a 4th VMWare host alongside the 2nd SAN for full DR but depends on how much £££ you have to play with. For starters get some sort of capacity planner on your existing network to see where the IOPs are going, which will help to plan your disk requirements for any new kit... servers are the easy part, the most vital area is the storage and will cause you a world of pain if you get it wrong

AV - ESET Anti-spam - MS Forefront Online Protection for Exchange (cloud based and part of Campus License) Filtering - currently done on our firewall appliance (Untangle) but hoping to replace with something beefier (Palo Alto, Sonicwall etc) Internet - JANET

We do the same as Psymon, works perfectly and maps the correct printer based on the OU of the Computer (ours are structured by room number in the building) Just make sure if you have roaming profiles to put "Delete All" as the first item otherwise you just get a build-up of all the printers you've ever mapped since the dawn of time

Was that doing mandatory profiles the MS-supported way with sysprep or a workaround method btw?

The throwing away comment was re: OEM physical servers for Storage Server 2008 R2 but I get your point Also if you use a proper repository system linked with the VLE it only stores a single copy of the resource across many courses using it. If it's then stored in that repository as primary storage location for teaching materials then you've also got it off the network and it's indexed... win-win

Because I already have my primary storage and servers in the form of a SAN and VMWare infrastructure and don't feel the need to buy another box just to get a single feature. Btw are you talking file or block level dedupe? Looking at the reports from 2008 R2 FSRM file level saves a bit of space but the efficiency gains very much depend on how your data is being used. In our case I can see loads of similar (but not identical files) which really needs block level dedupe to do... NetApp make a big deal of this but then they also charge the £££ to match I'd like dedupe... however I'm not going to throw away stable systems or chuck bundles of £££ at the solution to get it... As shared drive on the VLE isn't quite what I'd be hoping for, the management of the content needs to be better via metadata on the initial upload vs a bunch of randomly named files in a randomly named folder... all imho of course

True but at least they've got a better chance of being used rather than sitting in silos within each user's personal area, plus if people have to place them in a specific area, name the resource etc they're less likely to lob junk on there that's got little use \ relevance