omniblue

Currently we use AD Sites and Services for Content Boundaries. My organization's immediate problem is we have rather large sites that at the time did meet the requirements for SCCM deployment, but due to issues raised post deployment a revise warranted. The problem we are facing is preferred distribution points where Clients will have more then one Preferred DP due to matching multiple boundaries, overlap. The current implementation is having a single DP associated with each Office Building, A single AD Site covering an entire office building is used. The associated subnet with that site is (10.10.0.0/16). No problems. Post deployment I am tasked with setting up DPs for certain ITOfficeRooms (think IT imaging stations) that would only be configured for a single subnet 10.10.10.0/24 boundary. This ITOfficeRoom DP could not be used for ANYTHING else besides the 10.10.10.0/24 subnet. For the 10.10.10.0/24 range, no content should be received the 10.10.0.0/16 (OfficeBuilding) DP as preferred, fallback is allowed/necessary. If I simply added a subnet content boundary 10.10.10.0/24 and added the ITOfficeRooms DP to that Boundary, any clients in the 10.10.10.0/24 would have two Preferred DPs. ITOfficeRooms DPs from 10.10.10.0/24 and the OfficeBuilding DP from the AD Site and Services associated with the 10.10.0.0/16 subnet. With two preferred subnets the clients receive their content from either at random, design bust. THe whole purpose of the additional DP is to speed up content delivery. Solving this problem is proving more difficult. Powers that be do not want to stop using AD Sites and Services for the 10.10.0.0/16 range. One option that came to mind was creating another AD Site for each ITOfficeRoom, but this will only work if SCCM treats AD Sites and Services the same exact way AD Sites and Services handles subnets with Domain Controllers assignment. This being the most defined subnet takes precedence. For example: Two configured boundaries and their associated DPs: "OfficeBuilding" Content Boundary is associated with AD Site "OfficeBuilding". This AD Site is configured with a 10.10.0.0/16 subnet, This Content boundary is assigned the DP, SCCMDP01. "ITOfficeRoom" Content Boundary is associated with AD Site "ITOfficeRoom". This AD Site is configured with a 10.10.10.0/24 subnet, This Content boundary is assigned the DP, SCCMDP02. Would a client with the IP address of 10.10.10.100 only receive SCCMDP02 as a preferred distribution point? Much like how AD Sites and Services would handle domain controller assignment? My concern is the link to AD Sites and Services is really just pulling the subnets and using them much like creating the same subnet boundaries in SCCM itself, where the client would then receive both as preferred.

First let me state my understand of deploying updates and maintenance windows. Updates will download to clients as soon as the availability is met in the deployment and the client is receiving such deployment and found to be needed by the client. The client does not wait for deadline expiration or maintenance window to cache the updates for later installation during a maintenance window Updates are scheduled by the client to install during the maintenance window, per update, at specific times within the maintenance window - for EACH individual update. Follows a 20m install time + 5m restart warning + 10 minute restart turnaround for 35m total. If you have 20 updates to install and only a 5 hour maintenance window. 300/35=8. Only 8 updates will be installed. Here is my case scenario: Monthly Patch Deployment to 1500 clients. There is a single maintenance window, Sunday 00:01 - 07:00 for all 1500 clients. The Update deployment is configured to be available 4 days ahead of the deadline/maintenance window, Tuesday 00:01. Workstation restarts are permitted. The deadline occurs on Saturday 00:01, 24 hours before the Maintenance window beings on Sunday 00:01-07:00 BITS is not throttled. Assume in this case, no issues related to network traffic exist. For the sake of the conversation, all SCCM clients are online and functional. Where I need help... Is the 7 hour window enough to install updates for 1500 clients? I'm concerned this may not be enough time as I am not concrete on how update installs behave during the MW. I am also unsure how updates are installed exactly during the maintenance windows; specifically if they install as fast as possible or if the client scheduler sets a installation time for each individual update before the maintenance window starts and sticks to it. Let me give you an example. 50 updates need to be installed by the client. 7 hour maintenance window starting at 00:01 ending 07:00 Deadline has already expired 24 hours ago. It's now 1 hour into the MW and the first update is now being installed If this update installs in 5 minutes, and no restart is needed, will the next update start to install immediately and execute as quickly as possible, where subsequent updates continue just the same? Installing as quickly as possible until all are completed or the MW is within 34 minutes of expiring? Does the client instead wait the remaining 30 minutes before the next update installation begins? You thoughts are greatly appreciated.