Hello All, this is my first posting on the forums, so I'm not sure if I've placed this in the correct forum as I couldn't really find what I was looking for. I'm interested in opinions about application deployment architecture... more specifically... what are your thoughts on deploying applications in a domain efficiently, while trying to reduce server sprawl. It would be nice to have a seperate server for every server-based application, but that would put a strain on all resources over time... what are some best practices around consolidation? Do you keep application "types" grouped together? ie. web based vs desktop applications? or do you group based on the applications themselves? For example - I'm looking to deploy a new "help desk" software suite that includes the need for a database server, application server and web server. Database servers are clear and easy for me to architect, but should I seperate the web and application servers to other, similar web and application servers? or should I group these together (perhaps deploying them to the same server) because they are the same solution. I can see pros and cons to both methods and get the feeling this is going to be a preference based answer, but I'm curious if there are any best practices someone could offer or refer me to. Thanks!

Hi, According to the description, we can use categories to makes it easier for users to find an application in Add or Remove Programs in Control Panel. I would like to share you the following Microsoft TechNet article regarding Software Installation Group Policy. Best practices for Group Policy Software Installation http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc778924(v=WS.10).aspx Regards, Arthur Li TechNet Subscriber Support in forum If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.com . Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Hi, I would like to confirm what is the current situation? If there is anything that I can do for you, please do not hesitate to let me know, and I will be happy to help. Regards, Arthur Li TechNet Subscriber Support in forum If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.com .Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Thanks for your posts Arthur - unfortunately this isn't really what I was talking about... I was referring to the more philosophical sysadmin question of what applications to put on what servers and how to group them... ie... all web based applications on web application only servers? or related applications (say desktop and web based components of the same solution) on the same server? Does that make more sense? JK