Need help on Windows imaging strategy centralized vs decentralized

I am looking for a way to convince some team members to centralize the imaging procedure. Right now each person- about 5-8 people through out the city - creates his or her own images. The image then handed over to help desk guys for that specific location. There could be any number of different images at any given time for each location. Many people creating images, to many images, to many problems. There are moments when an image works fine, and yet an image created by a person in another end of the town works much, much better. Same set of applications, same set of software, all the same, except the person that created it.
I am looking for a resource that explains the advantages of letting only 1-2 people create the images at one central location and then distributing it to the remote locations.
Could anyone point me to such a resource or article, or a white paper, or Microsoft website that would explain why its better to centralize such stuff ?

PS. i just could not find anything decent, only some companies trying to sell their cloning software.

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Comments

Qord

How often are images made and what do you use? Ghost? Man-hours is the first thing that comes to my mind...how much money is essentially wasted by having that many folks make images?

CodeBlox

Look into System Center 2012. Me and one other admin are tasked with building images for our workstations which gets installed by the helpdesk. Distribution points are a nice feature that allow you to distribute your apps and OS to remote branches (granted you have sufficient bandwidth).

TechGuy215

I agree with codeblox, SCCM 2012 is the way to go. Hit the nail on the head with the benefits of distribution points. The software catalog is fantastic too. You throw the app on the SCCM server, create a couple groups AD allowing certain users to install certain apps then the user simply launches the client on their machine and they can install the apps themselves. Just read up on SCCM I'm sure you will like it.

JBrown

We have an En

ptilsen

2012 CM, for sure. Do not create thick images. Have a single master thin image unless there is a compelling technical reason this isn't possible. It should be fully patched with any configurations or minor applications that will not need to change for the foreseeable future. Most applications and configurations will be be done in task sequences. One task sequence per location might work, but in 2012 CM you can't get creative and even have fewer task sequences with logic on whether certain apps get installed, even on a per-user basis. All in all, 2012 CM is the way to go.

JBrown

Ghost is the primary imaging splution for number of our guys. I prefer WDS with MdT myself. But, I have moved out of imaging team a few years ago.
We have an MS Enterprise agreement in place, and SCCM20012 licenses are free with it. My point was centralized imaging will lead to better QA, but it was not convincing enough. So, I need some document to make it more convincing.

kriscamaro68

While I don't know of any document off the top of my head that talks specifically about 1-2 people and centralized image deployment, the fact that MS has WDS, MDT, and config man should speak volumes. All three are meant to deploy images out from 1 or 2 servers. MS built those products specifically for what you mentioned which means that's how MS wants it done. If you can't find anything document wise that is the argument I would use.

Take a glance at this and see if it helps: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj134267.aspx