Microsoft Surface 3 - Manual (Page 126)

© 2014 Microsoft Page 126
Chapter 6 – Automated Deployment with
SCCM
Unlike the lite-touch scenarios covered in Chapter 3 , Chapter 4 , and Chapter 5 that all use the Microsoft Deployment
Toolkit, the automated deployment scenario covered in this chapter uses zero-touch installation (ZTI) and System
Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) as the primary deployment tool. The Microsoft Deployment Toolkit is integrated
with SCCM to provide additional functionality and capabilities.
While MDT is a very powerful deployment solution that theoretically can deploy an unlimited number of computers, for
organizations with a large number of computers, manageability of MDT can become quite complex. Some examples of
limitations of MDT that can be resolved with SCCM include:

Folder replication between distribution points. MDT stores the components and settings used during
deployment on a network share. This is a reliable solution and is easy to configure for a single site, but for
organizations with many sites, replication of these network shares can become very difficult to manage.

Ability to deploy a zero-touch installation. Deployment with MDT can be highly automated, but even an entirely
automated MDT lite-touch deployment requires a user or technician to initiate the process on a target
computer. For example, the technician may need to press Enter to boot from the network. SCCM can initiate
and perform the entire deployment process on a client system without any user interaction.

Customizing the deployment wizard experience beyond the settings available in the customsettings.ini file in
MDT. This is known as a user-driven installation (UDI). UDI is not covered in this guide.
Although SCCM can be used to streamline deployment to large numbers of computers, MDT is still recommended as the
preferred solution for creation of images for deployment. The image used in the automated deployment scenario with
SCCM outlined in this chapter is the reference image generated in the reference deployment scenario from
Chapter 4 .
SCCM on its own is also a powerful deployment solution, but integration with MDT enables the best of both tools. MDT
brings a large number of enhancements to SCCM including:

Dynamic rules that enable the deployment to fit the characteristics of the environment, for example, adding a
specific application for a specific model of computer, like battery management software for a specific make or
model of notebook.

MDT enables real-time monitoring of the deployment process.

Templates for common deployment scenarios that simplify the task sequence creation process.
While the deployment process described in this scenario can be used to deploy to any number of computers, this
chapter focuses on three specific computers as shown in Figure 6.1:

SCCM Server
o System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2012 R2
o Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (Windows ADK)