expected behavior for clients that DON'T have a local distribution point

[wilbywilson]

I have a couple of questions about SCCM clients that will exist in physical sites that unfortunately won't have a local distribution point.

 

1) Should I set up boundaries as normal for these small sites, but set them to "Slow"?

 

2) I realize that I can deploy some applications with the option to NOT download source files from a fallback point, thereby limiting the amount of WAN bandwidth that these "slow" clients can use. However, some deployments (monthly Windows updates for instance) are absolutely required, and I'll specify those deployments to download updates from fallback points. My question is, how does a "slow" client decide where to grab the source files from? Does it go straight to the Primary? Randomly picks another distribution point (the environment will eventually have 10-12 DPs)? Does it somehow use AD Sites and Services to find the closest DP?

 

Thanks for any guidance on expected behavior and optimal configuration for sites that don't have local DPs.

[Peter van der Woude]

By defining a slow boundary you also need to specify the site system that it uses for content. That will be the location the client will look for content.

[wilbywilson]

Hmmm....thanks for the reply Peter. Your response leads me to believe that I don't have my boundaries/boundary groups configured correctly.

 

I'm still in the process of building out the SCCM 2012 environment here, but so far I am just using 1 Boundary Group, which contains 3 Boundaries (3 offices that each have a local Distribution Point. Each of these physical offices corresponds to a subnet in AD Sites and Services.) If I look at the "Site Systems" tab on any of the 3 boundaries, I see all 3 Distribution Points listed there. This makes me believe that a local client might use any of the 3 DPs, instead of *only* the local DP. But looking at my SCCM logs (so far), the clients seem to be smart enough to download files from the local DP, and not across the WAN.

 

Should I be creating a boundary group for each AD Site, if I want to limit that particular office/subnet to a local DP? This is quite a bit different than what I remember from SCCM 2007...

[Peter van der Woude]

Actually it's still the pretty much the same as it was in CM07. The main difference is that you now also have boundary groups and that they are actually used for content assignment. Everything "under the hood" about DP selection is still the same. The principle of slow and fast boundary (groups) already existed in CM07.