Technical Brief: Microsoft Configuration Manager 2012 and Nomad

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1 Configuration Manager 2012 and Nomad Better together for large organizations ConfigMgr 2012 (including SP1 and R2) has substantial improvements in content distribution as compared with ConfigMgr In this document we first list the benefits of ConfigMgr 2012 over 2007 and then discuss the benefits of Nomad in a ConfigMgr 2012 environment. ConfigMgr 2012 Content Distribution Enhancements over ConfigMgr 2007 Improved Feature Benefit Notes One Distribution Point role better support included for workstation Operating Systems Extends core DP functionality to branch and server share DPs. Microsoft IIS (Web services) is required on all DPs. Package Transfer Manager used to send content from site server to remote DPs Content Library single-instance storage Content Validation scheduled maintenance task to validate content BranchCache integration Higher client numbers supported per site Provides sender-like scheduling and throttling instead of BITS to BDPs. Includes intelligent logic that maintains history of files that are present on DP and does not resend the files saving bandwidth. More efficient use of disk space. Helps the administrator to ensure content is ready and available. If a DP fails then clients can still get cached content from their peers (only within local subnet). Fewer sites required than for ConfigMgr Configured per location to ensure business traffic is protected. Manual pre-staging requires FedEx, manual operations and co-ordination. Applies to duplicate files across different packages. Validation only administrators still need to check status and repair faults. Relies on BITS, which is a rate-limited technology and has known throttling issues. Limited Operating System deployment support. No centralized reporting. Limited cache history. Limited laptop support, and other issues. Secondary Sites are still specifically required for content distribution when many DPs are needed (hundreds or more). Requires Windows Server OS in each site/location. PXE role for DPs Easier to deploy and configure PXE, increased scalability. DP groups Less admin overhead for managing DPs. Pull Distribution Points Reduced workload on site servers. Cloud DPs Easier internet client support. Chargeable on a per-mb, and could be extremely cost prohibitive. India: Page 1 of

2 Microsoft and 1E s long standing partnership continues to thrive. 1E has over 16 million software licenses deployed on PCs running the ConfigMgr client. Nomad has already saved our customers more than USD$500m through server (hardware) reduction. Nomad adds value to ConfigMgr 2012 in three general areas: faster and lower cost deployment, lowering operational costs and reducing OS migration time and costs. This section provides the scenarios and benefits of the combination of ConfigMgr 2012 and Nomad. Nomad Faster and Lower Cost Deployment Applicable scenario Nomad feature Benefit to ConfigMgr 2012 customer Locations with Windows client Operating Systems and no servers Large number of branches and hierarchy; simplification for office locations with slow WAN links Nomad provides all necessary features (such as single download to branch, peer-to-peer distribution, intelligent bandwidth throttling, state migration backups, and PXE services) with all workstation OSs. The ConfigMgr client asks Nomad to retrieve all types of content from centralized DPs, thus removing all other distributed DP infrastructure. In larger environments it is not practical to manage more than 250 DPs from a Primary Site, so a layer of Secondary Sites would be needed without Nomad. Rapid deployment of ConfigMgr solution to entire estate and rapid Windows migrations Complete ConfigMgr functionality is available with simple setup and fully reliable (any workstation can serve these features). Operating System deployment is practical in all locations. There is no need to provision and deploy a server for any non-hq locations. Fewer ConfigMgr servers, one less hierarchy level in large environments Reducing server numbers directly reduces costs and time to deploy. In large environments, removal of a hierarchy level also makes replication and deployment speed of software updates and applications much faster. India: Page 2 of

3 Identification of workstations or servers at each branch to act as a DP or site server This is required as each machine must have available disk space, must be constantly powered on, and have spare capacity so the user is not disrupted. Automatic and dynamic election of most suitable workstation or server at a location. Rapid deployment of ConfigMgr In large organizations significant preparation time is required to identify workstations or servers in locations which can serve as DPs. This work can be avoided as Nomad automatically chooses the most suitable machine for each distribution (without any administration or manual effort). Analysis for deployment planning of the network connection to each remote location Automatic and continual scaling of bandwidth utilization from DP sever to any subnet, dependent on endto-end available bandwidth. Rapid deployment of ConfigMgr Not having to plan for available network bandwidth to each location minimizes the planning and deployment effort. Furthermore there is no need to consider future changes across the network as Nomad continually revaluates for optimal performance. Application and Package content sizes are increasing all the time and network contention is a serious issue. With ConfigMgr and Nomad together, the ConfigMgr administrators can safely assume that all distributions will never disrupt business traffic while making maximum use of available bandwidth. This is imperative when planning for Windows migrations. India: Page 3 of

4 Nomad - Lowering Operational Costs Applicable scenario Nomad feature Benefit to ConfigMgr 2012 customer Branch environments are always changing Organizations and their IT environments are constantly in a state of flux; mergers and acquisitions, new offices, closing down offices, subnets are reconfigured, network bandwidth changes, shared servers are rebuilt, workstations and servers upgraded to a new OS and other solutions are being implemented. Enterprise-wide Multicast As OS image and other package sizes increase, multicast is becoming important to some clients as central/ core bandwidth is preserved and fewer servers are needed. Some organizations also want to use ConfigMgr to distribute video/ multimedia content such as staff training and executive announcements. There is an election process to automatically select the most suitable computer to act as the master within each subnet. This master continually assesses the download and speed to ensure that the best decisions for content distribution are made automatically. Enterprise multicast - single stream of data to head office as well as some or all remote locations. Fewer people needed to manage overall environment and fewer configuration errors Nomad firstly operates on a subnet level meaning that any new subnets are automatically assimilated into the ConfigMgr hierarchy. Secondly Nomad automatically pulls in subnet and site information from the network teams data repository autoenabling new sites and subnets within the ConfigMgr hierarchy. This is one of the key benefits reported by Nomad customers. The network, server, desktop, application and security teams often have different schedules and changes are always being made, being able to automatically adapt to change reduces the management overhead significantly. Fewer ConfigMgr servers, faster performance through faster data transfer, cost avoidance and greater leverage of the ConfigMgr infrastructure ConfigMgr customers can avoid significant network device upgrades and implement fewer servers by using Nomad within ConfigMgr, as they can multicast data. Senior executives want to communicate with all staff using multimedia and this capability is enabled at the lowest cost. ConfigMgr is thus leveraged for a high profile business function. India: Page 4 of

5 Nomad - Reducing Windows migration costs Applicable scenario Nomad 2012 feature Benefit to ConfigMgr 2012 customer Automation of all Windows migration scenarios When migrating to a new OS (e.g. Windows 8.1) or rebuilding the OS, all key scenarios must be automated. Otherwise the cost of managing exceptions can be prohibitive. One of the most complex scenarios is bare-metal provisioning. This is required even in remote locations which have no servers or cannot share a server for ConfigMgr/ WDS roles. Local multicast for faster OS migration in branches Faster deployment of OS images, software updates, applications and multimedia are continually being demanded by the business and regulatory/ security SLAs. Nomad improvements for faster content distribution Innovative features speed up deployments in locations that have multiple subnets or large numbers of clients. Nomad s PXE Everywhere and Peer Backup Assistant features enable bare-metal network booting for OS migration or rebuild. Router changes are not required. Nomad local multicast from workstation or server to all machines in same location. Nomad s FanOut and Single Side Download (SSD) features speed ConfigMgr content distributions and deployments even faster than previous versions. Faster and lowest-cost Windows migrations Without a bare-metal capability businesses have to pay for factory image installation or on-site build engineers across all environments. This leads to significantly higher costs and longer timescales for Windows migration projects. With a combination of ConfigMgr and Nomad all build scenarios including baremetal are automated so factory images or build engineers are not needed desk side. Note: State Migration Points and WDS servers are not required at any location. Router reconfiguration for PXE request forwarding is also not required. Faster deployment of patches, applications and multimedia Whether in large offices or branch environments, the ability to multicast in each subnet speeds up all deployments while not requiring any change in the core networking infrastructure (as enterprise-wide multicast, which is listed above, requires, and thus may be restricted). Faster content distribution in key scenarios For over a decade, Nomad has helped many organizations of all sizes to increase the speed of ConfigMgr content distributions, but the FanOut and Single Site Download features improve on that impressive record. FanOut allows dozens of clients to simultaneously share content on a LAN. India: Page 5 of

6 Single Site Download allows clients on multiple subnets at a location to share content. India: Page 6 of