Creating a Deployment

5/4/2012

This section provides instructions for creating a deployment. You do this by using the New Image Deployment Wizard on the server running Device Manager 2011. You can select only one device imaging component, which typically corresponds to one device imaging solution.

If the device imaging component is installed on a different server than the server running Device Manager 2011, make sure all servers used for device imaging are configured correctly according to the documentation provided with the device imaging component. If you have further questions, see the Embedded Device Manager 2011 SDK on MSDN.

The device imaging component must be registered after it is installed. For more information on registering a device imaging component, see the documentation provided with the device imaging component.

When you upgrade Device Manager 2011, all outstanding deployments will be associated with legacy collections. After the upgrade, re-create the collections, and associate the deployment with the new collection. For more information on collections, see Device Collections.

For optimal performance, remember the following limitations:

  • When you create a deployment for a large collection of devices, the site server may experience increased CPU usage that will result in slow performance. For example, it may take up to 30 minutes to create a single device imaging request for 2000 devices. Also, during this time, the Device Imaging service may not respond to Services Snap-in commands, such as the Stop command. For more information about how to use the Services Snap-in commands, see Start, stop, pause, resume, or restart a service on TechNet.
  • No more than 20,000 devices should be re-imaged by a server running the Device Imaging service at a time.

To create a deployment

  1. By default, status messages are deleted 180 days after the expiration date for the deployment. The date set to delete status messages must be later than the expiration date of the deployment. To change the time interval for deletion of the status messages, follow these steps:

    1. Access the filter rule for the status message as if you were creating it. For more information, see How to Create a Status Filter Rule in Configuration Manager Help on TechNet.
    2. On the General tab of the New Status Filter Wizard, set the Message type to Audit.
    3. If the planned expiration date for the deployment is later than 180 days, on the Action tab of the New Status Filter Wizard, increase the Allow the user to delete messages after how many days (deletion date) value to a date later than the deployment expiration date.
    4. Restart the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) Service. Open a Command Prompt window and enter the following Services Snap-in command: net start winmgmt.
  2. In Configuration Manager Console, under System Center Configuration Manager, expand Computer Management, expand Embedded Device Management, and then expand Device Imaging.

  3. Right-click Deployments, and then click New Image Deployment.

  4. On the General tab, in the Deployment name box, enter a name for the deployment so that you can identify it later.

  5. In the Comment box, enter any needed comments. You can enter up to 1024 characters.

  6. In the Device imaging component list, select the device imaging component.

  7. In the Image box, enter a path and name of the image or click Select and select the image that you want to deploy.

  8. In the Deployment server list, select the server you want to use to deploy the image.

  9. In the Collection box, click Select and select the desired collection. To include members of the collection’s subcollections, select the Include members of subcollections check box.

    Warning

    Choose only those collections that exclude each device after it is re-imaged, otherwise devices will re-image indefinitely. For the same reason, if you are creating a deployment that targets predefined collections, the deployment must change the device type of re-imaged devices. To avoid having devices re-image indefinitely, create a collection query for an inventory property value that is changed after devices are re-imaged. For example: if your deployment is updating the OEM firmware version of a set of devices, create a collection query that looks for the outdated OEM firmware version. This way each device is excluded from that query after it is re-imaged.

  10. On the Schedule tab, set the expiration date for the deployment to a date before the deletion date set for the corresponding status messages.

  11. The remaining steps in this wizard are like those in the New Advertisement Wizard. For more information, see New Advertisement Wizard in Configuration Manager Help.

See Also

Concepts

Device Imaging