Hi everybody,
I'm new to SCCM and I need some advice about how to deploy software suites (fixed lists of software packages and applications) automatically to our rolebased assets. Rolebased assets are assets that have predefined software suites or 'roles'. Combinations of several roles on a single machine are possible. We currently use Altiris NS for our software deployments. The system I have there is as follows.
- regkey on the local machine defining the role(s) for that asset (values are streamed from our CMDB into the local registry)
- dynamic collection for each role based on the value in the regkey
- task assigned to the collection to install the role(s) (a fixed list of packages and applications)
- as stated several roles can be assigned to a single asset
For the deployment of several roles to the same machine we use a in house built solution called Sequence Installer (SQI). SQI keeps track of which role it is installing and will put other roles in a queue. It also has retry and reset functionalities. In case of failure it will automatically retry from the failed step. We can also manually restart the SQI from the start or from the failed step.
We are planning to migrate towards SCCM 2012 R2 and the purpose is to do as much as possible out-of-the-box. Meaning SQI should become obsolete and replaced by SCCM built-in functionality.
For SCCM, I'm thinking to do it like this: use the regkey to populate a collection for each role and work with a task sequence for the role installation. I'm sure that will work, but perhaps there are far better and simpler ways to do this in SCCM? Furthermore, I'm afraid SCCM will not be as flexible as SQI when it comes to automatically retrying and/or resuming the installation sequence in case of failure (failures caused by something that doesn't need manual intervention of course, like source corruption, non-blocking failures, et cetera).
Another way of doing it could be UDA, create a functional user representing each role and assign software to the user. Then link the assets needing a role as primary devices to the user representing the role and pre-deploy the software (in an OSD scenario). But again, also in this scenario I need the capability to automatically restart and retry failures.
It would be great if I could get some other opinions on the subject, thanks guys!
Kind regards,
Chris