Automatically target your SCCM client installs using FCS Policy
Hi folks
Here's a little tidbit that can help make deploying the FCS v1 agent package a little bit easier when you use SCCM (System Center Configuration Manager) or any other 3rd party software distribution system. Let's take the following customer deployment scenario
Scenario
Customer size: 40k users
FCS v1 configuration: 4 FCS v1 "pods", all managed via the FCS Enterprise Manager
Since you've got 4 different FCS v1 pods, you need 4 seperate installer command lines (because each package needs to point to the proper Collection Role server - each server has a unique server name and management group name)
Anytime you need to push the client out to new assets, you have to ensure you pick the right one - also, 4 command lines means it's 4x as likely you'll make a typo :-(
Solution
FCS provides a built-in mechanism to automatically "target" assets to receive the FCS client install via WSUS - when you deploy an FCS v1 policy to the asset, we write a set of marker keys to the client that contain the MOM Management Group name and Server name.
If you deploy the client bits to the asset via SCCM and do not specify the Management Group and Server Name on the command line, the installer automatically checks the known registry key location for the values. Since you deployed the policy to the machine, those keys are present and the machine is properly installed with the correct parameters!
This means you can create a single package with no Management Group or Server name command line parameters, freeing you from typo's as well as having to maintain more than 1 package.
You can leverage the power of the WSUS deployment system's marker keys for any deployment tool you choose, making it just a little bit easier to deploy FCS v1 clients to your assets
Hope it helps
Chris
Forefront Stirling PM
