The City of Garden Grove needed to deploy Windows 10 to 200+ workstations. The problem was their previous deployment solution was outdated, cumbersome and ultimately wouldn’t work with Windows 10. With a Linux – focused internal team, as well as a challenging computing environment, they needed a partner with Microsoft expertise who was able to come up with a unique way to solve the problem of deploying Windows 10 in their non-Microsoft domain environment.
“I would recommend Netrix for any kind of Microsoft solution. They were knowledgeable, professional, exceeded the goals and everything was delivered on time or ahead of time. One of the best engagements we have had,” said Winston
The customer’s domain runs on Open Source tools, and other partners who examined their environment prior to Netrix were unable to come up with a workable solution for deploying Windows 10, ongoing updates and patches within their non-Microsoft infrastructure.
Netrix proposed a solution based on the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit which is a free, widely used and supported operating system deployment solution. Unlike other tools, MDT does not require Microsoft Active Directory to function. Using this application, Netrix and Garden Grove developed a network and USB-media based imaging solution that could be used to deploy Windows 10, future updates, and patches to their workstation machines. Netrix tailored the solution to the customer’s unique environment (no DHCP, limited DNS, no Microsoft Directory environment) and demonstrated successful deployments to their machines using a new ‘thin’ deployment methodology. This allowed Garden Grove to deploy updated applications, as well as ongoing updates and patches to machines faster and easier than ever before.
The City of Garden Grove is now successfully deploying the tailored Netrix-architected Microsoft Deployment Toolkit solution. The system allows for faster, more customizable Windows deployments, and has also allowed them to deploy to new computer models with little or no effort. Time to deploy Windows along with applications, patches and updates decreased, deployment flexibility increased, and as a whole, the time it now ‘costs’ to do a deployment has been greatly reduced.
“We now have a deployment solution that is more flexible, scalable and faster than we ever thought possible,” said Winston.
In addition, the Netrix’s solution allowed the Garden Grove team to build new capabilities on top of the base solution. One week after project close the Garden Grove team was deploying Windows 10 to a new Dell tablet, using a new deployment sequence that they were able to create based on Netrix’s extensive documentation and cross training during the course of the project.
Working as an extension of the City of Garden Grove team, Netrix was able to not only satisfy the immediate goals of the project, but also engage the customer about other aspects of their environment that needed improvement. Understanding that the team had been Linux focused in the past and was comfortable in a scripting environment, Netrix was able to lead envisioning around management of Windows machines via PowerShell, opening up new means of configuration management for The City of Garden Grove team. This provided them functionality that they lacked with their Linux-based management infrastructure, and improved issue remediation and updating of machines, beyond the deployment of the Windows Operating System itself.
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