A look at task sequence media support for cloud-based content

[anyweb]

Introduction

Microsoft recently release the mother of all Technical Previews, TP2005 with so much amazing cloud friendly content, and in this blog post I want to look closer at task sequence media support for cloud-based content.

Here are the instructions for getting it going (and of course you’ll need a working CMG before starting this).

1. Enable the following client setting in the Cloud Services group: Allow access to cloud distribution point. Make sure the client setting is deployed to the target clients. For more information, see the following articles:
   • How to configure client settings
   • About client settings – Cloud services
2. For the boundary group that the client is in, associate the content-enabled CMG or cloud distribution point site systems. For more information, see Configure a boundary group.
3. On the same boundary group, enable the following option: Prefer cloud based sources over on-premise sources. For more information, see Boundary group options for peer downloads.
4. Distribute the content referenced by the task sequence to the content-enabled CMG or cloud distribution point.
5. Start the task sequence from boot media or PXE on the client.

Ok once the above is done and you have distributed your content for your task sequence to your CMG, PXE boot a computer that will get an IP address that falls within the range defined for the boundary of your CMG.

As you can see above, this IP address falls within the boundary of our CMG boundary. It will first download the policy of your task sequence(s) from the local management point (not the CMG), but as soon as you start the task sequence and it needs to download content, you’ll see messages within smsts.log revealing this provided that your task sequence content is indeed on the CMG.

Look for lines that read

Found location https://<YOURCMGNAMEURL>/downloadrestservice.svc...

and

IsCloudDP = 1, PreferCloudDPOverOnPrem=1

later it starts downloading the content !, noticed that the prioritized location is your CMG

including drivers…(much slower than downloading from a local distribution point though…)

then downloads and installs the configmgr client agent, again from your CMG

Now isn’t that awesome !

cheers

niall