Community Hub Support for Application Content - CM Technical Preview 2012

Introduction

I have been working in the IT industry a long time.  Long enough to remember days when IT support staff would run up or down a flight of stairs, locate a user's desk, insert a floppy disk or a CD into his or her device and install the required application.  Of course this was time consuming but also prone to error - some applications need to be installed in a particular way.  One incorrect click and that application might not install or might not work as required.

And then I might come in, as a Systems Management consultant, install SMS or SCCM - and everything was a little easier and a little more efficient.  But there was always a gap between manager expectations and the reality of what the management product could deliver: and this was particularly so in terms of application deployment.  Sometimes this was due to the sales person miss selling the product, or perhaps the consultant not clearly detailing requirements and limitations.

You see the key thing here is that Configuration Manager is good at delivering an application's source files to a group of devices.  It is also good at executing a command line on those devices to install those applications.  But Configuration  Manager did not, and cannot, magically determine what that command line should be for each company's application deployment requirements.  Most companies have certain standards - some might prefer their employees to run through a wizard but most will want those applications installed silently without user input.  This means also the application can be installed outside of business hours and thus there is no deleterious impact on user productivity.

And some applications unfortunately will not install silently without a bit of engineering.  They might need to be part of a scripted installation, or they might require a string of undocumented parameters - and thus the IT discipline of 'packager' was born.  Quite often a packager may be required to create a customised installer file called an MSI file.  And even if a default installer file will complete the task, sometimes locating this file can itself be a challenge.  To this day packagers are still required by IT departments to ensure the application installations taking place are processed safely and in accordance with professional standards and best practises.

This does impact the IT budget and so Microsoft has implemented the ability to share application content and configuration requirements via the Community Hub.  You can download those published application definitions and files and quickly have them registered and deployable in your environment.  This feature is now available in Technical Preview 2012.  Let's see how this works in practise by downloading the System Center Updates Publisher app.

Using the Feature

On a Windows 10 device with the CM console installed and opened, the administrator will navigate to Community\Community hub.  From here, and from amongst the numerous community hub offerings, the administrator can locate the System Center Updates Publisher app.

The administrator can then click on the System Center Updates Publisher tablet to commence the download.

The administrator enters in the share location.

The app begins downloading.

The app content and configuration download completes. 

The administrator can then verify the installer file is in the defined location.

And finally the administrator can check that the package has been registered in SCCM with the appropriate deployment type configuration.

Conclusion

This new feature is a great addition to a great product.  In minutes I was able to register the System Center Updates Publisher app along with its source MSI file and all the required deployment type configuration.  I can then distribute the source content and deploy the app to the devices that require it.  Such an effort might be take between 1 and 10 days if I had to:

1) Download the installer file manually.

2) Research and determine the MSI parameter switches required for an unattended installation and uninstallation command line.

3) Register the app in SCCM.

4) Test the install and uninstall deployment type on a set of test machines.

Obviously the administrator is still required to perform all required testing and quality assessment requirements - but no one can argue that this new feature is very good and will be much used when it is implemented into the current production release of SCCM.

I hope you enjoyed reading this article and I hope you have similar success in your own testing and demonstrations.

Colin