Software Deployment

Do you need to inform your users when they will be receiving updates? If so, that requires a more planned out structure that is probably based on something other than IP address.

I would probably separate computers based on something you might already be tracking. For instance, we make extensive use of LDAP labels that match our OU layout, which is done by department. If you have something similar you could optimize your departments into five groups of equal size. Add those labels to the appropriate patching schedules and you should be good to go. - chucksteel 5 years ago

I want to avoid having to maintain computers in different UOs if it is not needed. Since switching to KACE and having SmartLabels I have pretty much eliminated my need for maintaining a complex OU structure for managing the computers.

I also want to prevent the computers from crushing the K1000 or their local distribution share so I do not want to go by site, IP, anything that needs maintaining.

I did some reading up on REGEX syntax last night and I think I might be onto something. My standard naming convention is:
Site Prefix + Hyphen +First Inital + Last Name (nyc-bsmith). I was thinking I might be able to use the REGEX option to use the LAST character of the computername to put them in a group.

I gave this a try last night:

System Name Matches Regex a$|b$|c$|d$|e$| 1$|2$
Operating System Name Doe Not Contain Server

I figure I could separate A-Z and 0-9 into 4 groups that distribute the computers pretty evenly. I would imagine this would always be pretty balanced if I get the mix right and it would be something that would not need any maintenance other than an occasional shift of a letter or number into another group if they come very unbalanced.

My only question is using the REGEX. I do not see it mentioned very often so I am wondering if this could cause issues. - JordanNolan 5 years ago

So in my case it looks like using REGEX to find the last character in my computer name is giving me a pretty good spread. I am able to have about 25% of each group of computers patch each M-Th .

I ended up creating a manual label called "Patch Group 1" where I would manually maintain the computers getting the first run of patches for testing. These computer would get all new patches. Then I created 4 other smart labels and configured them as:

System Name Matches Regex a$|b$|c$|d$|e$| 1$|2$
Operating System Name Doe Not Contain Server
Label Name != Patch Group 1

I just had to balance out the REGEX parameters for [0-9] and [A-Z] and I now have 5 patching groups that do not require any manual intervention going forward unless I end up with a bunch of employees that all happen to have the same last character in their name. - JordanNolan 5 years ago