Brian S. Tucker

While I still continue to be a SMS / SCCM advocate, I have to say that my recent engagements with SoftGrid have been an enlightenment. There is still a huge advantage with SCCM / SMS, but the tasks required for SoftGrid are impressive to say the least. I'm a bit frustrated as I spent an hour typing a well worded post and the hotel Internet access was killed during the post and I lost everything. Let's hope this does not happen again.

That being said, my unpublished post was talking about the pros and cons of SoftGrid vs SCCM / SMS. I have to give high marks for SoftGrid, but there are many manual steps required to make it work. Here are some of the issues I have run into with SoftGrid.

1. If you have more than 1 server (main server & multiple branch servers) then you have to use DFS, SMS / SCCM DP's, or RoboCopy to transfer the sequenced applications to the other servers. This is recommended to be done after hours to limit the WAN traffic. RoboCopy works very well if you have a script that looks for changes rather than copying all the packages each night. A good coder can make this happen. (Joe N. from Charlotte, North Carolina knows my feelings on this & did a great job on the script).

2. Management of Branch servers is a manual process and if you have a lot, then you have to do a lot of repetitive work, I Hope Microsoft changes this in 4.5.

3. One sweet feature is that SoftGrid comes with the default DB that is not full blown SQL. Now, this is not suggested in production, but SQL 2005 SP2 can be installed on a single master SoftGrid server and Branch servers can house their DB's on the master server in a remote site. This significantly reduces the license costs for SQL and the replication over the WAN is very minimal.

4. Although the client is a simple install, you have to be very careful to make sure you have the proper command line to have the switches work correctly. A link to the switches are located here. An example of the command line is shown below.

msiexec.exe /i\\Server\Share\softgrid-wd-setup.msi SWICACHESIZE="5120" SWIDCSTYPE="SoftGrid" SWIDCSDISPLAY="MedCath Applications" SWIDCSHOST="%SFT_SOFTGRIDSERVER%" SWIDCSPORT="554" SWIDCSPATH="/" SWISOFTGRIDDRIVE="F" /q

Notice the last switch pointing to F:\. This is the drive you specify other than the default Q:\ and when you sequence applications, they need to be sequenced to the same drive letter. Personally, I don't like that, but it's a reality.

5. For SOME reason, Microsoft has yet to release a .adm template for Group Policy. There are several on the Internet, but some work and some don't. The one I like the best is the SoftGrid-Variable template. This allows you to specify either users or computers for a new Environment Variable that translates the %SFT_SOFTGRIDSERVER% into a local branch server. It's a great .adm template and just remember to remove the authenticated users from the GPO security filter and add in a new group that had either machines or users for that site. This reduces the client from traversing the WAN to get a sequenced application.

SMS / SCCM

1. It rules in management and administrative comparison. While I have to admit, it's a bit slower than SoftGrid, it's a 100% solution that is undeniable in its abilities. Faster is not always better. Reliability and simplicity are always a concern. If you want the best solution, stick with SCCM folks. It's rock solid and reduces the amount or work to deploy an application. AND, the application is 100% installed before the user opens the application rather than the feature blocks in SoftGrid.

You have to decide what's best for your organization in the end, but test both and see what works best for you in the end.

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