I am trying to find more details on how the whole device enrollment process works, major part that I am not very sure is how to manage a bulk of company owned devices (iPhone) which will be given to the users replacing Blackberry. How does the initial activation happens, and do we still need to use iTunes and if so, on a company owned device what would be the best practices on iTunes account, make a central single iTunes account and use that for all mobile activation or individual accounts for each device?

We have a demo scheduled on wednesday which will cover dameware remote, based in that i should be able to decide

Got some new info, the helpdesk ticketing solution in plan is from SolarWinds web help desk and it includes DameWare Remote Support. Haven't personally used this, but my thinking is if Dameware is available, should i still look at ScreenConnect?

If we need to have a true asset management system, I guess SnipeIT should be the better option as it can cover all assets online & offline. Does anyone have a process in place on how to use SnipeIT (the whole workflow as in when the machine get procured, goes through SnipeIT first, probably generate a QR/barcode, and then goes to IT stock and when user changes, comes back for updating on SnipeIT, same goes when it finally retires)?

And any suggestions on the stickers that can be used on all assets including mobile devices (not decided about that yet, but having the codes on assets, could make it easier for the support team to quickly manage/update on SnipeIT). Need to find out the process for the qr/barcode scan and how this can be used with snipeit.

Here at my new company, I am not seeing much requests for new software installations and got the report from the help desk team that once the initial set of software installed (PDF reader, Screenshot tools etc.) requests for new software are not a lot. In that case, a dedicated deployment tool doesn't seem to be necessary. I remember through screen connect, software deployment is possible per user based. I really hope the self-hosted solution does not have any limitations compared to the cloud version, and the first 3 technician limit is ok for our requirements. I am not aiming to install the agents on computers and initiate the remote support only on-demand.

Considering the fact that once it is decided the tools are mainly used by our help desk team who have minimal/no experience on Linux solutions. I wanted to make sure that we use something that is comfortable for them and once set they are able to make changes without further help from me. Based on these I am now more leaning towards SmartDeploy (Changing the title based on this as well!)

Some of the features I liked on that is the base image is made from a virtual instance so that this can be deployed to any machine and a single image to maintain, the driver packs for almost every model etc. I am planning to evaluate this in detail next week when I am back in the office.

My second choice would be MDT but again if SmartDeploy is taking the pain for spending a lot of time on the initial setup, which we don't have at the moment (lot of internal projects in the pipeline with tight deadlines)

I've previously posted few requests and would like to consolidate all here, to make an easy decision. My goal is to optimize the help desk team giving some great tools for them to make it easier to do the daily IT management effectively and efficiently. Even though I would like to stick to open source/Linux solutions, not everyone in my team is comfortable to go that route and I don't want to spend a lot of time on that.

Currently, most of the operations below are manual and time-consuming and the link discussions will hopefully help me to identify my final tool sets. Any suggestions, welcome other than these categories on a day to day operation.

OS Image deployment with standard applications

Remote Support

Asset Management

@jmoore said in Centralized Imaging- Clonezilla:

They offer a fully functioning free trial. Can use images and things you create afterwards if you decide to buy.

They have several packages but on mobile browser i couldn't compare the difference, mind telling what package you use? I need to check this in detail tomorrow morning

I am going to test that!

@jmoore said in Centralized Imaging- Clonezilla:

Yeah I use SmartDeploy. Love it. I can deploy over network or USB. Actually choose USB most of time though. I made an image with our software, loaded all the drivers I will ever need, created an answer file, boot to USB, don't have to touch it again until its ready to log in which I then do so to rename computer per our naming scheme.

Can you automate things like joining AD

@ambarishrh said in Centralized Imaging- Clonezilla:

https://www.smartdeploy.com/solutions/#device-drivers looks interesting, i like the driver management part as well, of course this is a licensed product, but I might get approval for that if clonezilla has issues

Anyone used smartdeploy?

We have a massive migration that's about to happen in a month.win 7 to 10 upgrades and I think choosing a right image deployment solution at this point is critical. And ongoing deployment would be easier with a centralised image deployment. I see that the help desk team spending a lot of time on system installation and configuration

https://www.smartdeploy.com/solutions/#device-drivers looks interesting, i like the driver management part as well, of course this is a licensed product, but I might get approval for that if clonezilla has issues

@coliver said in Centralized Imaging- Clonezilla:

@ambarishrh said in Centralized Imaging- Clonezilla:

I hope FOG is not widely used by the community here.

Out of curiosity why? It's an open source cloning tool that has/had some nice management features that I really liked.

Just because I don't remember seeing much discussion on FOG, thought it's not being used by ML community

@black3dynamite said in Centralized Imaging- Clonezilla:

@dashrender said in Centralized Imaging- Clonezilla:

I also use Clonezilla.

It has it's quirks - applying an image to a smaller drive than the size of the drive the image was taken from - while you can get it to work, it's a PITA sometimes. Getting it to boot in UEFI mode was also a PITA.

You have to use the alternative ubuntu-based for UEFI.

Could you please share more details?

Yes, but initial thoughts was to have screen connect also to be used for package deployment

Self hosted for us for sure and I am keen on reporting features as well too ( i remember reading about some reporting, not sure what's included)

Have plans for an endpoint patch management as the current sccm is only being used for minor tasks (we have the licenses) and is not great patch management for non ms products as far as I heard. Was planning to look at something like desktop central from manage engine which I guess can also be used for imaging computers as well. But looking at connectwise automate i could see that they have patch management not sure if imaging is covered. If so I like to stick to connectwise for remote management, patch management and if image deployment.

@scottalanmiller Do you use SC to deploy packages as well? Is it on-premise and if so, are there any limitations compared to the cloud version?

Planning to use this as a software deployment tool as well

Clonezilla is my current choice to be used as a centralised image deployment tool. I hope FOG is not widely used by the community here. I would like to hear more about this, on what is being used by you all