CASE STUDY

SYSTEM CENTER 2012 CONFIGURATION

MANAGER UPGRADE

ROBUST AND
RELIABLE
INFRASTRUCTURE
UPGRADE
Long time users of Nomad, a UK police force
depends on the solution for their migration from
SMS 2003 to ConfigMgr 2012 and looks to do the
same for a true zero-touch Windows migration.

Challenge

Solution

Benefits

The Constabulary has been using 1E

solutions, NightWatchman (for PC power
management) and Nomad (for
distribution of software, patches and OS
images), for a number of years across its
entire estate of around 4000
workstations in 140 locations. As End of
Support of SMS 2003 is imminent, the
police force wanted to upgrade to

With an already flattened hierarchy

developed when SMS 2003 was originally
deployed (along with Nomad), the
Constabulary wanted to continue to use
(and upgrade to the latest versions of)
Nomad and ConfigMgr as together they
require a similar architecture. It also
wanted to take the opportunity to create
a new server hierarchy for ConfigMgr

The Constabulary created a more robust

and secure ConfigMgr hierarchy using
Nomad and saw the following benefits:

ConfigMgr 2012 R2 quickly. It was also

looking to swiftly upgrade its estate to
Windows 7 because Windows XP
Support ended in April 2014.

2012 (and once migrated, the SMS 2003

one be will decommissioned).
Without Nomad, and only depending on
native ConfigMgr, it would be a
prohibitively expensive and large
management exercise to run the police
forces PC estate.

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Business as Usual (BAU) process, no

extra resource required
Cost avoidance of a DP at every site
No disruption to users
Accomplished the project before the
End of Support deadline.

ROBUST AND RELIABLE INFRASTRUCTURE UPGRADE

Simplified management, reliable distribution

About Nomad
Tightly integrates with SCCM 2007/
2012
Reverse QoS uses spare capacity
autonomic throttling system to
protect business data
Single Site Download (SSD) flattens
infrastructure
App-V streaming support optimizes
network usage for mobile clients
Peer Backup Assistant preserves and
restores user data and personal
settings
Multicast, WinPE support and
enhanced OSD capabilities

For a number of years the Constabulary has been using SMS 2003, but it with its End of
Support heading into the sunset, the IT Department felt it important to upgrade to
ConfigMgr 2012 as soon as possible. They had already flattened its hierarchy using only
a Central Site, one Primary Site and four Distribution Points (DPs) in hub sites.
Remaining locations do not have a local DP and are configured to traverse the WAN to
obtain content from the DPs at the hubs.
Deploying Nomad was key and has meant less software and less hardware that needs
to be deployed to its 140 sites. Once new servers were in place, the time to get our
locations stood up has been very quick, says the Technical Analyst of the ICT
department. Its relatively simple, linking a group policy to get the System Center
client and the new Nomad client comes down with it.

Our experience has shown Nomad to be very reliable.

It enables us to incorporate the ConfigMgr deployment into
our business as usual process.
He continues, We really do gain from Nomad. It has cut down the number of DPs and
simplifies management, not having to look after additional servers. ConfigMgr 2012
requires similar architecture to before which makes it easy. However, with our network
of sites it would be prohibitively expensive and a very big management exercise if we
only had native ConfigMgr.

PXE Everywhere enables one

machine to boot from any other on
the network without any network
configuration

Although we flattened our network during the SMS 2003 upgrade a few years ago, we
can still see large cost considerations on the OS server licenses and maintenance costs
on the DPs that we have been able to avoid which we can directly attribute to this
upgrade.

www.1e.com/nomad
The bandwidth throttling that Nomad does via its reverse QoS technology looks at
all activity on the whole network. This enables Nomad to automatically make the
systems management traffic and content distribution yield to business traffic and then
scale back up when the network bandwidth is once again available, all without any
administrative intervention.
Once at the location, the content is shared peer-to-peer, so it only needs to be
downloaded once. For the Constabulary this resolves the issues in the most
bandwidth-challenged locations and means that patches and upgrades happen when
scheduled. It gives them the facility to upgrade even the smallest of sites by
distributing content over the WAN.

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ROBUST AND RELIABLE INFRASTRUCTURE UPGRADE

Business as Usual, no hassle

Nomads PXE Everywhere is used on all machines in all locations, it gives the police
force the ability to rebuild machines and build new machines in any location without
having to deploy PXE servers or make extensive network router changes.
ConfigMgr 2012 requires a similar architecture to the one that the Constabulary had
before, With our network of sites it would be prohibitively expensive and a very big
management exercise if we only had native ConfigMgr, comments the technical
analyst.
Tied into the deployment program of ConfigMgr 2012 was a server replacement
program. The migration team created a parallel server network and once migrated to
ConfigMgr 2012 it will decommission the SMS 2003 hierarchy. As weve been
replacing the 2003 servers weve been deploying CongfigMgr 2012 and the new
version of Nomad at those sites, he explains.

As long time users of Nomad, we are very pleased that its a
no-hassle solution. Our past experience has shown it to be very
reliable and allows us to incorporate the deployment in our BAU
process.
The project, recently completed was done with a BAU process. The Constabulary did
use some 1E consultancy resource to assist with the design and deployment of
ConfigMgr 2012 and Nomad but havent employed additional contractors to manage
the workload. The role of the forces IT team has been to map out the strategy and plan,
and its day-to-day outsourcer manages the project at the local sites.
The Constabulary is now working on its Windows 7 migration project and will be using
Nomad for that. It rolled out the first site in November 2013 and with completion of the
project scheduled for April 2014, when End of Support for Windows XP occurs.

About 1E
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and simplify the management of large, complex IT environments in record time.
Designed with a singular focus to help drive down costs, 1Es solutions include tools for
IT asset management, Windows systems management and BYOPC.
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