IT's Dilemma

8:08 AM : Sufficient Information

I arrived at about 6:30 AM and began gathering the data I would need to facilitate deployment of OCS.  I have put together a spreadsheet that has most of the information I’ll need in it.  Several IP addresses are missing from the edge servers (not that I would want to post that on a public Web site anyway) and I haven’t looked into certificate requirements for the Enterprise Voice servers.  That said, I have enough to start creating entries in DNS for client autoconfiguration and I have enough information to install my first front-end server.

I should note that after I got my family situated last night, I did some more looking into Configuration Manager’s deployment things and I found some other resources that may or may not come in handy.  I’ll list them here for future reference or for others’ perusal.

1. The guy who did the whirlwind tour of configuring Configuration Manager: http://blogs.technet.com/deploymentguys/default.aspx
2. Also related to them: http://www.deploymentforum.com/
3. Microsoft Deployment blog: http://blogs.technet.com/msdeployment/
4. Desktop Deployment tech center: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/desktopdeployment/default.aspx

Most of those links came from a Web cast from a couple of days back which I watched last night: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032373731&CountryCode=US

The bad news is that I at least have to get Microsoft Deployment running in order to deploy some bare-metal servers.  The good news is that I know how to work with Microsoft Deployment.  It’s Configuration Manager that’s giving me grief.

9:21 AM : Review Complete

Just finished reviewing IP addresses with my boss and have completed filling out my spreadsheet.  I would recommend filling out a similar spreadsheet if you are working on deploying OCS.  A couple of notes: first, I left our public IPs off the spreadsheet.  Second, I still don’t have the certificate details for mediation server or speech server completed.  I’ll work on those in more detail when I’m deploying enterprise voice.  Here’s the list:

Edit: Removed planning sheet

12:34 PM : Configuring Microsoft Deployment

KMS is now running on the new domain, which facilitates deployment by allowing volume license operating systems to activate against a local server rather than MAK, which authenticates against Microsoft’s servers.  I’m also picking away at producing requirements for my team(s) so that they stay busy and getting the vanilla Microsoft Deployment solution accelerator running.  Until I have at least a bit done on OCS, I can’t dedicate any more time to Configuration Manager.  Microsoft Deployment will at least allow me to push operating systems without actually physically touching the box, since we have an IP KVM.  I’m also very used to setting up these types of deployment (I used BDD 2007 quite a bit).

12:53 PM : Added Windows Server 2003 R2 (32-bit) and Windows Server 2008 (64-bit)

I have two operating systems set up now in the Deployment Workbench.  I also configured Windows Deployment Services with pretty much the default values (but set it to respond to all client requests, known and unknown).  I imported the same Broadcom drivers I originally got from their RIS download, and I’m ready to set up a lab deployment point and create boot images.

3:15 PM : F Lock

That’s really not intended to be a derivative of a curse word, although I almost wish it were:  I just spent the last hour of my life feeling even more frustrated because I knew I had Microsoft Deployment configured properly, but I couldn’t get PXE to actually pull down the boot image.  It turned out that my F Lock key was on.  (Some Microsoft keyboards have an F Lock key that open up some keyboard shortcuts.)  The F12 command was actually being sent as Print.  At least I didn’t print 1200 copies of a boot screen.

4:42 PM : WinPE2.1 & Broadcom

Apparently WinPE2 changed the way it enumerates hardware and accordingly has trouble installing/recognizing Broadcom network devices, at least in a 64-bit environment.  Thankfully Jeff Huston has a solution that I’m trying right now.  At least it didn’t have to do with my F Lock key.

5:47 PM : No Luck

Still no luck.  It seems, however, that this was probably the problem with Configuration Manager in the first place.  I’m quite certain I had the right drivers imported, but this post gives me hope that it’s just a network driver issue.  Maybe if I can find the right driver, I’ll be able to get Configuration Manager running.  For now, I need to run and help a friend drywall.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 16th, 2008 at 4:49 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.