Good Afternoon - In a couple of days, I have 200 workstations being delivered. Each must be imaged using a few different Task Sequences in our SCCM's OSD. Locally, I currently have my primary SCCM server & SQL on one massive VM as well as two separate older DL380 servers running dedicated as distribution points. Each of these two DPs currently host all packages. I've read that there is no Load Balancing with SCCM or DPs which is unfortunate, but also know that Multicast is avalable. I did set up and configure SCCM from scratch and have an intermidiate networking background, but am no pro at Multicast. The only thing I know about it and my SCCM is that I currently have it enabled on each DP as well as set up my servers to use BITS before adding the DP role. Other than that, everything else is default. We currently don't boot to PXE. Therefore the only thing close to load balancing that I have now is that I have created USB boot media for each separate DP. When running OSD, I rotate the 2 different media to keep it pulling from both servers. Given the above, what would be the best method to image these machines? I have a few ideas below: - Configure Multicast / Ensure it works / How do I test? - Split 4 NIC team on DP to (2) 2 NIC teams and run one to 1 gig switch which is plugged into workstations - Create Standalone Media for my Task Sequences to image some machines - (Already Done) Trimmed down TS to be a short as possible - Still takes 20-25 minutes, though. - Hope that someone replies with post on something they found which will be easy and load balance perfectly :) Attached is a screenshot of the properties of my MultiCast. If you have any suggestions for anything, please throw them my way. One more thing... SCCM & SQL are on Win08 R2. The two DPs are on Win08x86. Screenshot Thanks! Ben K.

Multicasting requires WDS to be installed on the DP that is multicast-enabled. Can you confirm that? "USB boot media for each separate DP"? How can that be done? You can only create a bootable media that's unique for a site / MP. The DPs that are mentioned during the wizard are just used for copying packages to the USB media ... that has nothing to do with the DP that will be used by the TS. Torsten Meringer | http://www.mssccmfaq.de

Thanks - I actually found an article here that gave me a good start. I ensured that WDS was installed on both of my DPs as well as other services/roles, edited my image & software packages to have the option to use Multicast (not only Multicast), then changed my advertisement to Download content Locally... I booted to my USB media and started one of the OSD TS's that I changed. It did start differently and displayed a window mentioning Multicast. At the same time, I started a 2nd machine with the same thing. Currently, both have have been hanging on that window for over 10 minutes now without any change in progress. I double checked and do not have my DPs set to Scheduled Multicast so it shouldn't be waiting for any more clients. Below's a screenshot of what I'm talking about. Any ideas? Screenshot Edit - One more thing - I checked out the file system while waiting and there are currently no LOG files found anywhere either. I really don't think it even partitioned yet to be honest. Ben K.

Multicast is a function of the network infrastructure which must be enabled for multicasting. Note that generally, the break even point for multicasting as far as deployment time goes is pretty high. The number will vary of course depending on where the clients are, how many yopu are doing, the network quality, etc. Most folks on these forums and elsewhere report generally poor performance with multicasting though unless you get a large number of clients.Jason | http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/jsandys | Twitter @JasonSandys