Hello, We are planning to deploy a bare minimal client in the environment. Initially we want to install the client with just Remote tools and Advertised Programs turned on. Once the clients are deployed in the environment, we are planning on turning on the other agents one by one, software inventory as an example. I understand that this is a global setting. Of course, we don't want to create any network saturation or possibly bringing the network down. Once enabled, will the clients report inventory collection based on the time it was installed, 7 days from December 28, 2011? Or will all clients try reporting at once potentially creating a problem with the network? Thanks in advance for your help.

I have never seen a ConfigMgr. installation without hardware inventory running from day 1. A typical hardware scanning is less than 100 kb pr. client and normally will never do any harm to your network. After the initial scanning, clients will only send delta information back to the site, and that's usually less than 50 kb pr. client. I know that do not answer your question, but hopefully it will get you to reconsider the strategy :-) and for the answer: Clients will gather inventory based on what's installed/found in WMI (and enabled in the SMS_def.mof file). ConfigMgr. do not care how you installed the software, it will still gather the information.Kent Agerlund | My blogs: blog.coretech.dk/kea and SCUG.dk/ | Twitter: @Agerlund | Linkedin: Kent Agerlund

I concur with Kent's recommendation to reconsider. A couple of other points also. If you have a simple schedule, the clients should all send their initial inventory based upon their installation time. But even if they don't, there will be some entropy and random load leveling that happens because not every client will enable the hw inv agent at the same time: they will enable it when they recieve the updated policy which can happen at anytime within whatever polling interval that you have configured. Jason | http://myitforum.com/myitforumwp/members/jasonsandys/ | Twitter @JasonSandys

I have never seen a ConfigMgr. installation without hardware inventory running from day 1. A typical hardware scanning is less than 100 kb pr. client and normally will never do any harm to your network. After the initial scanning, clients will only send delta information back to the site, and that's usually less than 50 kb pr. client. I know that do not answer your question, but hopefully it will get you to reconsider the strategy :-) and for the answer: Clients will gather inventory based on what's installed/found in WMI (and enabled in the SMS_def.mof file). ConfigMgr. do not care how you installed the software, it will still gather the information.Kent Agerlund | My blogs: blog.coretech.dk/kea and SCUG.dk/ | Twitter: @Agerlund | Linkedin: Kent Agerlund

I concur with Kent's recommendation to reconsider. A couple of other points also. If you have a simple schedule, the clients should all send their initial inventory based upon their installation time. But even if they don't, there will be some entropy and random load leveling that happens because not every client will enable the hw inv agent at the same time: they will enable it when they recieve the updated policy which can happen at anytime within whatever polling interval that you have configured. Jason | http://myitforum.com/myitforumwp/members/jasonsandys/ | Twitter @JasonSandys