Tales of SCCM...

So if you've read my last post or two, you are probably thinking "gee, is madanthony's employer really paying for him to go to Indiana just to sit in his hotel room eating hamburgers from creepy midwestern-based chains"? The answer is, of course, no.

I'm here to learn about SCCM - Systems Center Configuration Manager, a Microsoft product that we are planning on using to replace ZenWorks, the Novell product we currently use for applications deployment. In the past, these functions have been done by our system engineers, but the idea is that after the migration, it would be done by desktop techs like me.

I've done a ton of stuff in class so far, but only some of it is really relevant to what we plan on doing with it. We did spend some time covering application deployment, installing the client, remote control, and using the SCCM configuration manager utility. But we also spent a lot of time covering features that I'll never use - inventory reports (we have a person who just handles inventory, and he uses a different tool), software update deployment (the instructor recommended that most places stick with WSUS - Windows Update Server - and once again, someone else handles that server). We also looked at other features like zero-touch installs using PXE boots - which might be something worth looking into in the future, but right now our current imaging system is probably fine.

So did madanthony go to the wrong training? No. This is the only SCCM class that MS offers - evidently they were going to split it into 3 five day classes, but didn't. So instead of going in depth into the things I will need, I got an overview of everything, and now I'll need to spend some time learning and playing more with the features we actually need. While still doing my day-to-day work and other aspects of the AD migration. So things will be interesting.