There is a famous joke by the late, great Irish comedian Dave Allen about the Irish skill of giving directions:
“I suppose Ireland is the best place in the world for directions. People will say to you, ‘I wouldn’t start from here if I were you’.”
When it comes to desktop software deployments, expert advice for many enterprises would be “I wouldn’t start from here if I were you”.
But the reality of modern IT infrastructures, just like the reality of finding your way around in unfamiliar countryside, is that we are where we are. Not many (if any!) organisations have the luxury of consistency when it comes to updating software. Most organisations have multiple deployment methods that typically include deeply embedded SCCM-driven processes alongside Intune, with the latter often driven by IT modernisation initiatives.
What is fairly certain is that the way we update software is changing. How do enterprises understand and manage the applications in their IT estates? How are security, cost, and performance risks mitigated and controlled? This is what we will explore in this blog.
Desktop Software Deployment and Endpoint Migration-Opoly
Software deployment and keeping desktop software up to date in large organisations are processes that fit into our Endpoint Migration-Opoly infographic. The Endpoint Migration-Opoly board conceptualises the scale, depth, and breadth of elements involved in not just endpoint migrations, but also endpoint management.
On our board, the main software deployment technologies currently in use – SCCM (now officially known as MECM) and Intune – replace the utilities on a traditional Monopoly board. As “utilities”, they are essential components in the endpoint management space.
Given the critical role that applications have in the day-to-day operations of just about every enterprise organisation in the world, software occupies the second-most valuable real estate on our Endpoint Migration-Opoly board.
Managing Your Valuable Software (Real) Estate
The journey many enterprises are currently undertaking in terms of software deployment loosely mirrors Microsoft’s software management journey. In our whitepaper, An IT Professional’s Handbook to Endpoint Management, we presented a timeline of this journey, charting its more than 30-year history. That timeline is reproduced below.
If Microsoft had its way, everyone would be using Intune exclusively by now. But SCCM has itself evolved. It’s also familiar, and it has strong vendor and community support. It works, too – that part is often overlooked. With so many other headaches and challenges in the IT sphere, it is reassuring to rely on technology that does the job as expected, however “old-fashioned” it is.
That said, the direction of travel (to stick with the timeline and Monopoly themes) is towards Intune. In fact, many organisations are close to the stage where they can switch SCCM off. For those not quite at that stage, we have published a step-by-step SCCM to Intune guide that covers best practices for making this transition a success.
For example, identifying security and compliance policies, converting them to Intune, and then migrating, testing, and validating them.
Common Pitfalls and New Opportunities
There are many pitfalls that can get in the way of effective software deployment, and even more opportunities that can be realised by modernising and automating software asset management. For this blog, we are going to focus on three. Combined with our step-by-step SCCM to Intune guide, you can optimise software update deployments today and modernise for the future.
The Role of Hardware
When deciding on a deployment platform (SCCM, Intune, etc) and processes for keeping software up to date, you can’t ignore endpoint and user hardware. Hardware varies considerably, so your software deployment strategy must take into account the makeup of hardware and the various tasks that need to be performed – policy implementation, rebuilds, Autopilot new builds, software upgrades, app updates, etc.
Software Asset Management
Software asset management is an area that is too often neglected, especially when it comes to controlling licensing costs. It might not seem like much – $15 here, £89 there, but multiply by tens of thousands of devices, and those costs quickly add up.
Software asset management is also linked to hardware, as it is crucial you have a full understanding of apps installed and apps used (there is a difference). Apps installed and used incur a license, which is likely to be justified. Apps installed and not used also incur a license, but that’s wasted expenditure.
Evergreen Application Updates
Applications vary significantly. Your app estate is likely to have commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) apps, enterprise apps, and custom apps. Multiple vendors will be involved, and the level of app importance will range from minor inconvenience to existential threat.
Within this diverse variety of applications will be a group that has similar characteristics:
- Very commonly used, not just in your organisation, but globally.
- Frequently updated by the vendor, sometimes weekly.
- Present a low level of risk.
Taking a standard, traditional approach to software deployment, these types of apps can take a similar amount of time to update as more important, enterprise apps. Add in the fact that updates come in more frequently, and your IT resources end up spending more time on these types of apps than any other.
Evergreen application updates are the solution, where the process of checking for updates, downloading updates, repackaging the update, and testing the update is all automated. The potential time savings of this approach are huge.
Updating Your Desktop Software
The points in this blog and our SCCM to Intune guide are best practices for application management processes and keeping your desktop software up to date. However, they can also be very time-consuming if actioned manually. This is where automation comes in, with products like Access Capture.
So, how do you update your desktop software? Are you using both SCCM and Intune? How close are you to moving away from SCCM altogether? Do you want to? And are you automating application management? Join in the conversation.
