While hunting for some Hyper-V videos, I came across recorded sessions from the 4th Nordic Infrastructure Conference. No sales pitches, only some great talks from field hardened consultants. The sessions are focused on Enterprise Infrastructure (Microsoft Windows Server, System Centre, Azure, PowerShell DSC, Identity Management, Security/hacking).
Session Info http://2015.nicconf.com/sessions Recorded sessions: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChu8zqu8d1mjWxNRLlGXUAw
Updating the disk images used by MDT I’ve been working on a project to set up an Amazon Web Services AMI bakery and thought its time to update the disk images used by Microsoft Deployment Toolkit too. The time to install patches during deployment was getting crazy. The process to update MDT images is:
(PXE) Boot WinPE (from WDS server or some other TFTP source) Format and partition disk install OS install core software to be included in image (eg Office or SNMP), install updates (for OS and Microsoft apps) SysPrep Boot into WinPE & Capture image (WIM) Shutdown Start with a regular client/server template and add a capture stage to the end of the task sequence.
Hide Select a location for the network When you deploy Windows 7 you get a prompt: “Select a location for the network”. Laptop users also see this when they connect to a new network or WIFI service. You must pick the local network type. This helps Windows firewall decide if the local network is trusted (Private) or untrusted (Public). Rather than leave this as a manual choice for PC deployment staff and laptop users, you can automate this.
JRE install/reinstall package This will help you do unattended install of JRE. JRE is a little tricky as there are several major versions. There are 32bit and 64bit editions. There are regular updates. And there are plenty of security vulnerabilities that need patching regularly, especially the java plug-in for web browsers. Currently Oracle release JRE updates every quarter and this needs to become more frequent. As a result you need good version control for your packages and reliable install and upgrades.
Deploying VMs from templates harks back to the bad old days of disk imaging. But using “baremetal templates” ensures your virtual hardware configuration is consistent (choice of NIC, choice of array controller, disk is thin provisioned etc..). Then make a baremetal template that boots straight into WinPE for unattended OS deployment. Then you get consistent VM hardware config without maintaining a distributing OS disk images.
Create VM template or factory image with WinPE on harddisk Create VM with required virtual hardware configuration
