Getting Started with the Deployment Center

Create a software and hardware inventory to assist in deployment planning.

Test applications for compatibility and mitigate the compatibility issues discovered during the process.

Set up an initial lab environment with deployment and imaging servers.

Customize and package applications.

Automate desktop image creation and deployment.

Ensure that the desktop is hardened to improve security within the environment.

Manage processes and technologies to produce a comprehensive and integrated deployment.

A Zero Touch BDD solution for organizations with a solid management infrastructure. This uses Systems Management Server 2003 and Microsoft Operations Manager 2005, as well as the tools and technologies available in Windows Vista and the 2007 Office system and is our recommended solution to obtain the full benefits of BDD methodology.

A Lite Touch solution for organizations that might not have such an infrastructure. This is a free download available along with source code and uses an MMC plug-in infrastructure for a quick and simple way to plan, build, and deploy desktops within your organization. This free BDD download gives you all the guidance, documentation, and tools (Windows Automated Installation Kit, User State Migration Tool, Application Compatibility Toolkit, and more) you will need for a successful desktop deployment.

Manage teams and processes to produce a comprehensive and integrated deployment based on technology solutions.

Set up lab and test environments that the development teams will share.

Create software and hardware inventories for deployment planning.

Test applications for compatibility with Windows Vista and mitigate the compatibility issues discovered during the process.

Automate applications' installations and customize their configurations and repackage applications if necessary to achieve a fully automated installation.

Develop strategies and solutions for migrating users' documents and settings.

Create an automated process for developing and deploying computer images.

Develop an imaging strategy that requires fewer flexible images to deploy dynamic builds to destination computers.

Deploy computer images using lite-touch and zero-touch solutions; deploy computer images remotely to branch offices and mobile users.

Harden deployment servers and computer images against security threats.

BDD 2007 adds support for deploying Windows Vista and 2007 Office system. Office 2003 deployment guidance is now available separately.

This release of BDD introduces the Deployment Workbench for creating and customizing computer images. The Deployment Workbench is a Microsoft Management Console (MMC) console that replaces the Computer Imaging System Wizard (Config.hta) in earlier versions of BDD. The Deployment Workbench is a significant improvement that you can use to create a distribution point (operating systems, device drivers, applications, and packages). You then create builds and deployment points based on source files in the distribution point.

The Deployment Workbench provides far more advanced handling of applications, device drivers, and so on than Config.hta in earlier versions of BDD. For example, you can specify dependencies between applications. In fact, the Deployment Workbench includes native support for 2007 Office system.
Another example is device drivers, which the Deployment Workbench catalogs; then, the Deployment Wizard uses the catalog to inject device drivers in to the image during deployment to a destination computer. This release of BDD is smarter than earlier versions.

BDD 2007 merges the lite-touch and zero-touch code. Customizing both lite-touch and zero-touch solutions is now a similar process, and the guidance contains updated information about both solutions. Both coexist in the same environment and provide broader scenario coverage with common tools. Additionally, the Deployment Wizard (lite-touch deployment) is new and significantly improved in this release of BDD. Both solutions now use a standalone task sequencer that's derived from Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 to simplify the scripting complexity present in earlier versions of BDD.

This release of BDD includes the Windows Automated Installation Kit (Windows AIK). BDD fully leverages the tools in the Windows AIK, including ImageX, Windows System Image Manager, Windows PE 2.0, and Windows Deployment Services (Windows SD).

The documentation has been reorganized and updated so that each guide separates step-by-step instructional guidance from process and background guidance. This organization makes focusing on one or the other easier, and it makes customizing the guidance simpler for partners developing solutions based on BDD.

Widely varying results and costs for desktop deployment occur when customers aren't using a standard set of deployment guidelines.

Customers often produce varying types of solutions when they focus more on technology and less on methodology.

Customers can perceive that desktop deployment is complex and expensive when they don't have a repeatable and consistent process around the technology.

The Microsoft deployment tool strategy has been unclear and scattered.

Plan, Build, and Deploy Guide. The Plan, Build, and Deploy Guide explains how to plan and complete the project and is intended for the entire project team. It describes project planning, timelines, team roles, and other project management information. The content of this guide is driven by MSF.

Feature team guides. The feature team guides provide information about specific technical areas. Separating the technical content from the planning and management content enables you to focus on the types of documents that are most pertinent to your role on the team. Feature team guides steer specialist teams through planning, building, and deploying tasks and checkpoints within the larger deployment project. Guiding the teams through the checkpoints ensures that each team's decisions align with the overall project goals and that the deliverables are well integrated into the total deployment project.

For example, a program manager will spend much more time with the Plan, Build, and Deploy Guide than with a technical document; conversely, developers will spend the greater part of their time with the feature team guides and less with the Plan, Build, and Deploy Guide. Although the Plan, Build, and Deploy Guide may indicate that it is time to create a computer image, it does not describe how to perform that task. Instead, it refers to the Computer Imaging System Feature Team Guide.

Each feature team guide contains synchronization points that refer to milestones in the Plan, Build, and Deploy Guide. In this way, the technical content can be updated independently of the management guide while remaining synchronized with specific deliverables, milestones, and decisions in the management planning structure. In addition, step-by-step processes are separated from conceptual content as appendices in the feature team guides. This separation enables team members to quickly move into action items, particularly when team members are well versed in the concepts underlying the early project phases.

Job Aids. Several job aids (templates) are provided as starting points for the project. For example, where the Plan, Build, and Deploy Guide indicates the need for a functional specification document, the corresponding job aid shows which type of content should be included in the specification. The job aids can be modified to fit the specific processes and requirements of each organization.

Solution Technology. You use the solution technology files to set up the imaging and deployment servers that create standard Windows-based desktop configurations. These files include the Deployment Workbench, which you use to create distribution shares and customize operating system builds. BDD includes scripts to deploy Windows, install applications, capture user state data, and so on.

Application Compatibility. Companies can have thousands of line-of-business (LOB) applications installed across distributed networks. To ensure that these applications are compatible with a new operating system, it's essential that companies test these applications against the new operating system. Compatibility problems with one or many of these applications can cause costly work stoppages and impact the company's revenue stream.

Computer Imaging. To succeed in deploying an operating system, companies should use the best technology and business processes available as well as the best practices for optimizing those technologies. By developing baselines for the computing environment, companies have a known and fixed configuration for deployment, which lowers the cost of ongoing support, troubleshooting, and other operations. Through imaging, a standard build that includes core applications, the operating system, and any additional company requirements can be used for workstation deployment.

Infrastructure Management. Understanding the network environment is critical for any project that introduces network and server changes. As part of your planning and preparation, you must understand the current status of your organization's environment, identify other sources of change that may affect the project, and develop a risk-mitigation approach to the changes before incorporating them.

Deployment. Deployment planning and pilot testing should be part of any development process. Deployment processes will differ primarily around the technologies used for the deployment. The deployment process might seem like a complex task, and the resources required may be unavailable. If so, consider using an IT partner to help with the planning and process development to make the task more manageable for your internal IT staff.

Application Management. Desktop deployment usually includes applications. You must plan how to deploy each application, whether you deploy it as a core application in the disk image or as a supplemental application. Of course, automating application installation makes deployment more efficient and less error-prone, so you must repackage those applications that don't provide a way to automate the installation and customize the application.

Office 2007 is an integral part of the business desktop. As a core application, most companies will use the guidance in BDD to include the 2007 Office system in a disk image. Alternatively, companies might want to customize the 2007 Office system and deploy it by using SMS. Following the proven best practices that BDD provides will help make the transition to the 2007 Office system easier.

User State Migration. The combination of users' data files and their operating systems and application settings is called user state. Settings include items such as screen saver preferences and Web browser favorites. Migrating users' data files and settings means that those users will have minimal interruption after the deployment process.

Security. For most companies, securing the computing environment is the IT department's highest priority. When deploying new operating systems or computers, making sure that the new deployments are at least as secure as the current environment is critical. In fact, any process for deploying new computers must include deploying secure systems. By using constantly updated baselines and images, you can keep the environment secure while still allowing rapid deployment of new workstations.