SCCM 2007... am i screwed?

[exodusprime1337]

Sooooooo.... a client of mine wants sccm, they're way to small imho to actually need such a large piece of software but with their business situation they got the software for 62 bucks... Now they want it installed and configured.. I'm not a heavily seasoned windows system admin, but this looks like it might be way beyond my skill level.

Question is, what are my chances of getting in installed and working properly?

the server will be a fresh empty clean install of windows server 2008 r2 enterprise with nothing on it, might be a virtual machine and i'm also wondering if it can be put into a virtual environment(hyper v under windows server 2008)?

 

[ShiBDiB]

http://www.windows-noob.com/forums/index.php?/topic/1064-sccm-2007-guides/

lol good luck...


Although your that tech guy everyone hates... the one who doesnt know that much but managed to convince the boss that you do only because he knows even less then u do

 

[exodusprime1337]

http://www.windows-noob.com/forums/index.php?/topic/1064-sccm-2007-guides/

lol good luck...


Although your that tech guy everyone hates... the one who doesnt know that much but managed to convince the boss that you do only because he knows even less then u do

I never convinced him i knew more, he just asked me to get this goin for them, neither of us have ever installed it, we're a very small outfit, just 3 people, and only realy do the it work for car dealerships and law firms, never have we needed such software

 

[ShiBDiB]

I never convinced him i knew more, he just asked me to get this goin for them, neither of us have ever installed it, we're a very small outfit, just 3 people, and only realy do the it work for car dealerships and law firms, never have we needed such software

Have you tried telling him that you have no idea what your doing and he'd have just as good of a chance getting it running by himself? If not then ya, he assumes you know more then you do.

 

[exodusprime1337]

Have you tried telling him that you have no idea what your doing and he'd have just as good of a chance getting it running by himself? If not then ya, he assumes you know more then you do.

no i didn't tell him that i had no idea what i was doing, i have a blank and clean slate to do this one, and i can set up a lab prior to the install. The thing is that there are only 100 computers total for this company, and my initial configuration is going to include only 2 boot images, i hate to say it can't be that hard, but it dosn't seem like it's that hard. I have a shit load of steps to follow to get this running yes, and there will be a learning curve yes, but when it all comes down to it.. it's just a lot of steps to follow it seems is making the task seem all that daunting...

 

[ShiBDiB]

Theirs a microsoft certification specifically for this program

But heres a book published by microsoft

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/book.aspx?ID=9554&locale=en-us#tab1

Also if you have a microsoft testing center nearby they offer courses

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/Course.aspx?ID=6451B&Locale=en-us#tab1

not 100% on how microsoft course work tho

 

[johnnyfiive]

It really depends on what they want to use SCCM for. If they will use it for what its supposed to be used for, (imaging, updates/patching, databases, application packages, etc.), then yes, you will be in for some long nights setting everything up. SCCM is no where near easy when configuring all the features its capable of. It takes tons of time and configuration just to prepare image deployment within MDT (which SCCM uses for image deployment). I've been using MDT and portions of SCCM for a while now. With no real training or understanding of how those tools work.. it can be pretty frustrating. I'd inform that client of yours just how time consuming SCCM is, and I'd even get them a quote from a certified admin who has SCCM experience to show them just how expensive it is to configure. I'm sure that client of yours will realize and understand that its not simple at all, because it honestlty isn't. If anyone tells you its "cake to configure", or that its "easy", they're lying, or they haven't even touched all the features it has. SCCM is fantastic, when you have it configured right.

Edit: For 100 computers, SCCM can still be well utilized to manage them all, but its definitely overkill. It will save you plenty of time in the long run when managing them so it is worth the trouble of setting it all up, especially since your client got it soooooo cheap ($62 !?!?! ). It will give you tons of learning experience as you go, so its a win win as long as your client is paying you to configure and learn about SCCM. I still recommend getting a quote from a certified admin to show proof of how expensive it would be for an outside source to do it (You'd be very surprised at just how expensive that service is). Good luck! lol

 

[exodusprime1337]

It really depends on what they want to use SCCM for. If they will use it for what its supposed to be used for, (imaging, updates/patching, databases, application packages, etc.), then yes, you will be in for some long nights setting everything up. SCCM is no where near easy when configuring all the features its capable of. It takes tons of time and configuration just to prepare image deployment within MDT (which SCCM uses for image deployment). I've been using MDT and portions of SCCM for a while now. With no real training or understanding of how those tools work.. it can be pretty frustrating. I'd inform that client of yours just how time consuming SCCM is, and I'd even get them a quote from a certified admin who has SCCM experience to show them just how expensive it is to configure. I'm sure that client of yours will realize and understand that its not simple at all, because it honestlty isn't. If anyone tells you its "cake to configure", or that its "easy", they're lying, or they haven't even touched all the features it has. SCCM is fantastic, when you have it configured right.

Edit: For 100 computers, SCCM can still be well utilized to manage them all, but its definitely overkill. It will save you plenty of time in the long run when managing them so it is worth the trouble of setting it all up, especially since your client got it soooooo cheap ($62 !?!?! ). It will give you tons of learning experience as you go, so its a win win as long as your client is paying you to configure and learn about SCCM. I still recommend getting a quote from a certified admin to show proof of how expensive it would be for an outside source to do it (You'd be very surprised at just how expensive that service is). Good luck! lol

Thank you for the insight. Looking at all the guides, i'm fairly certain i can do it. Yes there will be some extreme hours into setting this up, but i think the learning i'll recieve from it, will def help going forward. Not to mention the power this software will give me over the computers in this network. the lucky thing is that 75 of these computers are exactly the same, and the other 25 are the same laptop.. is that good for me? lol