Motivating choice between targetting Users or Computers

[BenjAdmin]

Hi all,

 

For a company migrating from Novell Zenworks to SCCM I have to motivate why they should target computers instead of users with softwarepackages.

 

I allready have a few reasons, but i'd like to be as complete as can be, so I ask you guys for help.

 

The points i have:

 

You lose control of what is installed where, there you link advertisements to the logon on the computers.

You lose control of the used licenses.

If an administrator log's in on a client computer (to solve some problems for exemple), other software, not user proprietary gets installed.

You create more overhead on the network there certain softwarepackages will be installed when not necessary

 

what can be added to this list?

Benefits of targetting users instead of computers are also welcome!

 

kind regards,

 

BenjAdmin

 

Summary of this thread:

 

Why to target computers instead of users with sccm

 

Managabilty disadvantages of targetting users:

• When you target users for software deployments you will lose the manageability of your environment there you link the advertisement to the logon of the users onto a computer within the Active Directory domain. Those users can log on/off wherever they want and therefore software gets installed on computers where this software wasn’t supposed to be available. This also makes this software available for other users who shouldn’t have access to that specific software package.

• From time to time it is necessary that administrators or helpdesk operators take control of a users machine, this machine will be targeted for distribution of software intended for the Administrator / helpdesk operator.

• There these users can log on to any desktop you will have no idea on where your software will get installed thus you don’t have any idea of how many software licenses for a specific product are used or how many times this software is unnecessarily installed.

• Users will need to log off and log on again before the machine with the current user will be added to the correct collection to get its software advertised. When software is mandatory, a new logoff/logon is required to get it installed (due to the security token only being created at the time of log on to the machine).

• When you target computers you will have less work there SCCM is primarily designed for this way of software distribution. This means less IT-costs and thus saving your company money in the long run.

 

Technical disadvantages of targeting users:

• There more software will get installed on the different clients in your environment because you can’t control these installations anymore; a larger overhead will be created on your network infrastructure. Some software packages are very large so this can have a real impact on the performance of the corporate network.

• Although SCCM can target users and user groups; software distribution history on the local client is part of a different area in WMI and the right-click tools, SMSClient Center, and lots of other wonderful SCCM utilities either don't interface with that user-specific WMI area at all, or are inconsistent. Targeting users instead of computers will thus limit you in the use of your SCCM environment.

 

 

Conclusion:

 

Although targeting of users and user groups with SCCM is supported, it is strongly advised to NOT use this feature of SCCM!

[Eswar Koneti]

If you have any risctrictions to use computer by particualr user ,then you can if not,it would be difficult since,users may log into different computers there by install the applications on all.

and licensing tracking ,monitoring appliaction status would be difficult.

[BenjAdmin]

No one else has any suggestions?

[Lucid]

I think your list is fairly good. Each environment sees different things as being the priority. One more might be....If you base things on computers, you typically have less work. Which means it costs the company less. If you want more, I think Sherry Kissinger (skissinger) posted some reasons over in the http://www.myitforum.com/forums/System-Center-Configuration-Manager-f144.aspx SCCM forum at one point in time...

[BenjAdmin]

OK, found another reason thx to the link you gave me:

 

Skissinger wrote there:

"you know that although SMS can target users and usergroups, software distribution history on the local client goes into a different area in WMI, and the right-click tools, SMSClient Center, and lots of other wonderful SMS utilities either don't interface with that user-specific WMI area at all, or are inconsistent, so you want to advertise to the Machines, not the users."

 

When I have created my reasoning, I will provide an overview here as well for future use.

 

If someone has more suggestions, they are still welcome!

[BenjAdmin]

Why to target computers instead of users with sccm

 

Managabilty disadvantages of targetting users:

• When you target users for software deployments you will lose the manageability of your environment there you link the advertisement to the logon of the users onto a computer within the Active Directory domain. Those users can log on/off wherever they want and therefore software gets installed on computers where this software wasn’t supposed to be available. This also makes this software also available for other users who shouldn’t have access to that specific software package.

• From time to time it is necessary that administrators or helpdesk operators take control of a users machine, this machine will be targeted for distribution of software intended for the Administrator / helpdesk operator.

• There these users can log on to any desktop you will have no idea on where your software will get installed thus you don’t have any idea of how many software licenses for a specific product are used or how many times this software is unnecessarily installed.

• Users will need to log off and log on again before the machine with the current user will be added to the correct collection to get its software advertised. When software is mandatory, a new logoff/logon is required to get it installed (due to the security token only being created at the time of log on to the machine).

• When you target computers you will have less work there SCCM is primarily designed for this way of software distribution. This means less IT-costs and thus saving your company money in the long run.

 

Technical disadvantages of targeting users:

• There more software will get installed on the different clients in your environment because you can’t control these installations anymore; a larger overhead will be created on your network infrastructure. Some software packages are very large so this can have a real impact on the performance of the corporate network.

• Although SCCM can target users and user groups; software distribution history on the local client is part of a different area in WMI and the right-click tools, SMSClient Center, and lots of other wonderful SCCM utilities either don't interface with that user-specific WMI area at all, or are inconsistent. Targeting users instead of computers will thus limit you in the use of your SCCM environment.

 

Conclusion:

 

Although targeting of users and user groups with SCCM is supported, it is strongly advised to NOT use this feature of SCCM!

 

I edited my first post to include this summary

[Peter van der Woude]

A reason to go for targetting users is when you've got, what we call, "flexworkers" (multiple people that share multiple computers).

 

Another reason might be the tooling that is used for approving the use of an application (webbased applications where a user can request software and the manager can approve, like ConfigMgr 2012 but without the connection to a computer).