After they sit on a shelf for a few months I would debate if they are really "Ready to go" when a user wants one. Most likely they are a few months out of date on updates and such. How many minutes does it take for them to "catch up" and truly be ready vs imaging them?
What you describe here "Id like to have a task sequence that prepares the computer with the OS and applications and brings it to current patch level" is a monolithic or fat image. It includes all core apps, updates, and so on bundled into an image and captured. Those only take a few minutes to apply to a system. Personally I would go back in the process a few steps and try to figure out exactly what it is that the support staff needs. Exactly how many of such machines do they need to have on hot standby? Are all of the computers in this classification the same hardware type "If a *computer in a critical area*" If so just have 2 of them on hot standby. Hot being plugged in, on the network, and powered up. Then they would truly be able to swap them out quickly. Lots of thoughts and ideas, but without more information it is sort of useless. I would focus on the point that those machines on the shelf are truly not "hot swappable" and they in fact take a few hours to get caught up. Challenge them to show you, then give them a better solution. On Fri, Apr 8, 2016 at 2:33 PM, Miller, Todd <[email protected]> wrote: > I am looking for some ideas about this scenario. > > > > Our desktop support staff frequently installs computers using OSD/ MDT and > then sit the computers on a shelf – sometimes for several months-- before > putting them into service. This is mostly because they want to be able to > quickly drop a new computer in place if an existing computer fails. If a > computer in a critical area, they want to swap out the computer quickly so > that critical use is not down for the day. > > > > This cause me stress because those machines are in AD and in SCCM but are > not active. So they show up on my reports of machines that are AD joined > but haven’t checked in in a while (are they lost or stolen or just sitting > on a shelf?) They haven’t patched in a while (are they on a shelf or is > SCCM agent broken?) It is really difficult to tell the difference between > a computer that is off and a computer that is broken. At least the Off > machines respond to a WOL typically. Machines sitting on a shelf do not…. > > > > Id like to have a task sequence that prepares the computer with the OS and > applications and brings it to current patch level, but then is able to put > the computer into a “dormant mode.” Dormant mode might mean deleting the > computer from AD, preparing the computer to resume the TS on next power on, > and then powering off. > > > Then when the computer turns on, the TS should resume. Maybe I’d have a > task step to rejoin AD and go through some finalization process – maybe run > an install update task to get caught back up etc and then the machine is > ready to go. This would get the machines ready faster and would not cause > me so much trouble with idle machines on shelves. > > > > Is there a name for this already? Good blogs about it? > > > ------------------------------ > Notice: This UI Health Care e-mail (including attachments) is covered by > the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. 2510-2521, is > confidential and may be legally privileged. If you are not the intended > recipient, you are hereby notified that any retention, dissemination, > distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. > Please reply to the sender that you have received the message in error, > then delete it. Thank you. > ------------------------------ >
