I'm starting to help my dad run a small managed service provider (MSP) company, and we have several hundred clients each with 10 to 300 devices, mainly Windows machines. We usually need to provision about 5 new machines every week, but sometimes it can go up to 30. Currently, I use a Windows 11 USB with an unattended setup for installations, followed by a PowerShell script for app installations. A portion of our clients is set up with Datto RMM, but that's only about a third of them. I've heard good things about using Intune, but we can't possibly move all clients over there. I'm looking for recommendations to speed up our provisioning process without adding another subscription. Any suggestions?
6 Answers
Have you tried using Ventoy? It’s pretty handy for managing your USB installation setups, especially if you update your WIM with the necessary drivers beforehand. Also, consider keeping a folder with driver exports for all the devices you service to save time on manual installations.
For bare metal provisioning, I rely on FAI, and I think it's a solid choice. Tools like Salt and Ansible are great for service-level configs. Hook these into a configuration management database, and they work seamlessly!
If your provisioning is done locally, consider using MDT/WDS (Windows Deployment Services). Setting up a PXE Boot system can let you install Windows without needing a USB, which can save you a lot of time.
I think you're doing great for a small MSP with so many clients! To streamline things, think about what processes you can standardize across your clients. Could be things like using Intune or a PXE boot setup. Focus on the largest group of clients and tackle them first. Try to consolidate clients into similar setups to minimize the variety of solutions you support.
The best route would be to get your clients set up with Autopilot and a sub-tenant account in your MDM. This means you can ship devices directly to end users, who then sign in using their corporate accounts and have their devices configured automatically.
You might want to check out Windows Configuration Designer. It allows you to create a provisioning package that you just plug into the USB during the Windows setup process, and it handles a lot automatically for you.
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