Re: Opinions: Is SMS an option for this scenario?
From: JPaul (jpaul_at_idea.com)
Date: 03/23/05
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Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 21:46:38 -0600
SamP wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> Forgive me if I chose the wrong group for this question. I am looking for
> quick opinions as to whether SMS might be an option for my company's
> particular scenario.
>
> Background (as brief as possible):
>
> We sell turnkey solutions where we control the software and hardware
> environment for our customers. We have about 500 customer sites scattered
> across North America at which we'd like to implement an automated
> deployment and patch management solution. Each site has anywhere from 20
> to 200 hundred client machines, plus servers (so 30,000-50,000 nodes
> across the continent). We want to be able to perform remote software
> deployment of MS patches, third party applications/updates/patches, and
> our own software installations/updates/patches.
>
> Right now, we have 150 support staff who log in remotely to each customer
> site through VPN, and then remotely deploy software manually at each
> client machine.
>
> We're just starting a preliminary evaluation of tools on the market. So
> far, we have proceeded on the assumption that we're going to need to
> deploy a client/server solution at each site in order to be able to manage
> each site individually, perform upgrades of the deployment tool itself for
> each site individually, etc.
>
> This meant that we initially discarded any solution which required a fully
> licensed version of SQL Server or Oracle for both cost and maintenance
> reasons. The only player that came out of this evaluation is LANDesk,
> since they support MSDE. Now we've discovered that LANDesk, for example,
> could actually do all of this centrally without requiring a server config
> at each site (or so many people are telling me), which eliminates the
> requirement that a vendor support something like MSDE . We could have a
> series of servers that we host, and control all of the sites individually,
> as well as control updates to the LANDesk software for individual sites,
> etc. Just how that works with updates, I don't really know. It sounds like
> have provisions for fail-over, etc, which of course we be the types of
> concerns that immediately come to my mind if your hosting such large
> numbers of client machines from a series of centralized servers.
>
> So my question is, without you knowing all of the details, could SMS
> possibly be used in a similar way?
>
> We will be doing a full evaluation, proof of concept, due diligence, and
> possibly pulling in a consultant or two, but I just wanted to get some
> 30,000 foot opinions on how appropriate SMS might be in our situation.
>
> Thanks
> Sam
This is not really viable simply because of the administration. Unless all
those machines are part of your domain or they all share the same accounts
for the SMS Administration (security issue with some clients) - then this
would not be an option - not even LANDesk or related management software
(simply too much work, administration, overhead - for a basic need). What
I would do is to create a central repository for all these clients to
obtain the patches and their software, then run some type of script to
perform the tasks you wish - even on schedule. SMS would be too much of an
administrative burden in this case. If all you need to do is distribute
software then I advise against it - there are more clever ways to do what
you want.
Just to give you an idea - I can have all your clients connect to one
location for their updates, upgrades, etc at a schedule. I can even
provide a feedback mechanism to identify the successful deployment.
Question is - what all are your requirements? From there, I can give you
the options.
If you wish, follow up with me at lindleyrl AT yahoo DOT com then I can
help you more.
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