Thinking of implementing SMS 1

[JoeySpills]

Hello all,

I currently have 50 XP Pro users (35 laptop/15 workstation) and 5 Win2K3 servers. This is a CPA firm and right now things are hectic coming down the home stretch of tax season. Users work in house for the majority but are constantly onsite at tax client locations using citrix (pretty hard to get them all under the same roof). My idea is this...I would like to implement a SMS server for the sake of rolling out Apps, updates, etc.

I'm gonna hop on Microsoft.com and grab as much info and filter through it for when the time comes in a couple of months perhaps I can make a move. Can anyone steer me in the right direction or give me any tips/links that can suit my needs? Thanks in advance.

JSpills

 

[ncotton]

Bit pushed for time to give you a great run down, but I will offer you my turbo guide to installing and configuring SMS, an easy to follow guide to get yourself a basic fully working sight, and some knowledge to start you off. Tim (our bigget Guru (TBrennans)) will probably be on here before I get chance to come back online and will give you more information on the basics. I think [link=http://www.microsoft.com/smserver]Microsoft SMS Site[/url] will give you a good start with the benefits and such. Some advice...make sure you have a decent test setup to practice on, as some things can get a little fiddely.

Anyway, welcome to the group, hope to see you around some more.

If you want the installation/overview guide, look at my profile and contact me on the email provided.

Hope this helps.

Neil J Cotton
njc Information Systems
Systems Consultant

 

[tbrennans]

Thanks for the kind words Neil.

Joey,

50 users is a hard call as far as roi goes, I'll go through a few thoughts and you can do what you will with them :-D

1st off, how do your remote users connect and and what speed? If they are RAS through dial-up, it will be brutal, dsl or better not to bad but VPN can slow things up a bit. SMS will use bits to deploy to clients not on your lan if you set it up to do so.

What size programs are we talking about deploying?

if patches is more of the priority perhaps WSUS? (free)
GPO's to deploy software? (free but not to much control)

I am a huge fan of SMS but your in a grey area for me and it would be tough for me to tell you to go that way with 50 users. That said if they dont mind speding the $$ and you dont mind learning it, then I'm all for it :-D

1 server hardware
1 server lic
1 sql lic
1 sms lic
55 client lic
optional wise installer or Admin Studio (cha-ching) but sms installer is free.

click above on the FAQ button for more SMS info

 

[JoeySpills]

Thanks for the info guys!

Well, I was at some point late last year pondering a WSUS server (for another account) to meet strictly update needs. Maybe it is still a good solution for what I'm tryin to do now as well. The programs we run are strictly for accounting (Pro fx, PPC e-tools, etc.) and are mainly databases.

Currently we have just a single T1 and the remote users are connecting to the citrix server for their remote database needs. We have 5 clients in L.I., NY that soon will not be so remote as we have Verizon dual T1 routers on the way for a P2P 3MB tunnel (sweeeet) connection. Perhaps I'll just read up as much as I could about SMS and determine then if it's the right solution. And I guess I'll look further into WSUS as well. Any other tips are without a doubt welcome. Thanks again!

JSpills

 

[tbrennans]

Don't get me wrong SMS will work fine for you it might be overkill and there will be a bit of reading for you to figure it out. (especially packaging software although MSI software releases now are way better than a couple years ago)

WSUS is sooooo simple to use and the price is right.

As far as GPO for software deployment, this is a good starting point:

http://www.gpanswers.com

Either way you go there is a lot of support out there!!

Good luck.

 

[ncotton]

woops

...to start you off. Tim (our bigget Guru (TBrennans)) will probably be on ...

I meant BIGGEST dude! sorry

Neil J Cotton
njc Information Systems
Systems Consultant

 

[GerhardR]

nice thread!
we here use SMS except for security updates - WSUS works perfectly!

take care!
gerhard