UIU Case Studies

rss

Law Firm uses the UIU for Driver Management in ConfigMgr Bookmark

Reinhart, Boerner, Van Deuren s.c.


The law firm of Reinhart, Boerner, Van Deuren s.c., has offered a wide variety of services to small and large businesses, individuals, and non-profit organizations around the world for over 120 years. They have six locations in Wisconsin, Illinois and Phoenix with over 200 attorneys and 250 support staff providing first-class legal services ranging from Business Law to Intellectual Property to Litigation and much more.


To manage their IT system operations and OS deployment in their mixed environment, which includes a substantial Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, Reinhart relies on the powerful systems management platform from Microsoft, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM). Leading the Reinhart IT Team is IT Director, Justin McLaughlin, an experienced administrator with over 10 years managing SCCM.



You don’t have to deal with driver image models ever again. The UIU plug-in for SCCM is a no-brainer.

Justin McLaughlin, IT Director

The Challenge with Drivers in SCCM


Because of Justin’s experience with SCCM, he is intimately familiar with the capabilities of Microsoft’s robust platform. As much as SCCM made systems management far more comprehensive at Reinhart, his team continued to experience significant challenges with driver management. As with many organizations, Reinhart’s hardware disparity, consisting of a mix of legacy and new machines from different manufacturers, caused challenges with OS deployment. SCCM’s cumbersome driver management requirements further compounded this challenge forcing the IT team to manually search for install files for production drivers or physically create them, inject proper driver models, and then ensure proper configuration. In addition, there were unknown limits on the number of driver .cabs per package. This resulted in, as Justin put it, “a disproportionate number of spec’d out jobs to image each machine to ensure each PC has received the correct driver set.”


The Reinhart IT Team wanted to find a more efficient way to handle drivers, but the best they could do with the existing capabilities of SCCM was to be as diligent and organized as possible for each driver and .cab file. The additional time required for initial setup aside, each time there was an update or new driver to add, the re-organization process took up a considerable amount of time and resources.


If they were able to locate the existing appropriate package, and the new driver file was configured correctly, they could inject it into the package. If not, they were forced to create a new package to correspond to the new hardware collection. Then the only way to test the accuracy of the package was on deployment. If drivers were missing or configured incorrectly, or an incorrect package was added to a particular Task Sequence, the process became quite time-consuming. A Better Way to Manage Drivers in SCCM When Reinhart learned about the Universal Imaging Utility System Deploy Plug-in (UIU plug-in for SCCM) Justin and his team were eager to test it. What they found was that the UIU plug-in for SCCM completely eliminated all of the driver headaches they experienced in the past. After a quick installation, the UIU plug-in for SCCM inserted itself seamlessly into their SCCM framework. Then, instead of manually organizing and packaging each individual .cab file, they needed only to run a Task Sequence including the UIU plug-in for SCCM Machine Configuration Step. The only thing left was to Advertise their new Task Sequence to any Collection of PCs regardless of manufacturer or model, and the deployment would be successful. Not only were existing drivers automatically handled, but new driver updates automatically updated within the UIU plug-in for SCCM Package for future Task Sequence assignment.



I can’t emphasize enough how nice it is to explore hardware that is the most beneficial for our organization - whatever the brand.

Justin McLaughlin, IT Director

No More Driver Headaches


The UIU plug-in for SCCM is a fully integrated plug-in specifically designed for Microsoft SCCM. The UIU plug-in for SCCM contains a vetted and updated driver database of over 40,000 business class Plug-and-Play IDs. A real-time Discovery Tool ascertains the on-board hardware of every PC in an environment and assigns only the best driver for each component during Mini-Setup. The UIU plug-in for SCCM completely eliminates the need to locate and inject driver .cab files, organize, and package them.


Justin concluded by stating, “Management of drivers in SCCM is messy. Even if we could keep up with separate .cabs and separate packages for separate classes of machines, let alone updates and newer driver releases, maintaining all of this is a nightmare. We are really thrilled with the UIU plug-in for SCCM. Anything that I ever envisioned in a perfect world for driver management in SCCM, the UIU plug-in for SCCM completely exceeded.”


Tennessee Schools Manage Drivers with the UIU Bookmark

Maryville City Schools


Maryville City Schools is a K-12 school district located about twenty miles south of Knoxville in Maryville, Tennessee. The district educates over 5,000 students throughout seven schools, including a high school with over 1,000 students enrolled. In addition to the student bodies, Maryville City Schools employs around 700 staff members, including both teachers and support staff, all tasked with preparing students for a lifetime of learning and responsible citizenship. To help facilitate that goal, the Maryville IT department maintains approximately 1,500 PCs for use by students and faculty.


Both the size of the district and the multiple locations involved require a high level of expertise in IT operations and support. Leading the IT efforts for Maryville City Schools is District Technology Coordinator, Andrew Raulston. Andrew’s varied experience in IT operations and support allows Maryville City Schools to utilize the powerful systems management platform from Microsoft, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM).


Driver Management Challenges


Prior to the adoption of SCCM, Andrew managed his images with Zenworks. While the implementation of SCCM throughout the district allowed for a more comprehensive approach to systems management, Andrew continued to experience significant challenges with driver management. As is the case with many organizations, Maryville found it both costly and nearly impossible to maintain a homogenous fleet of PCs. The hardware disparity extended beyond an already challenging environment mixed with both desktops and laptops to an environment with multiple models from several different manufacturers.


To manage his diverse environment, Andrew was forced to manually search for the necessary .cab or driver files for each make and model machine. Once he was able to locate the necessary files, they still needed to be packaged and distributed before including them in the OSD Task Sequence. Advertising the Task Sequence to a PC collection posed another set of challenges, as the collection had to be hardware specific and limited only to the drivers in the Task Sequence. Once a change was made to his PC inventory, or there was a new driver or update, the process started all over again.



The amount of time I saved was more than worth the cost of the software.

Andrew Raulston, District Technology Coordinator

An SCCM Integrated Solution for Drivers


The frustrations of managing drivers in a diverse hardware environment were great enough that Andrew started looking for a better way. A quick Google search led him to the Universal Imaging Utility System Deploy Plug-in (UIU plug-in for SCCM). The UIU plug-in for SCCM is a fully integrated plug-in specifically designed for Microsoft SCCM and contains a fully-vetted and continuously updated driver database of over 40,000 Plug-and-Play IDs. The UIU plug-in for SCCM discovers the onboard hardware of each PC in an environment and assigns only the best driver for each component. This automated process completely eliminates the need to locate, organize, manage and create driver packages.


After finding the UIU plug-in for SCCM website, Andrew requested a trial and soon discovered that it completely eliminated all the driver hassles he had experienced in the past. Instead of manually organizing and packaging each individual .cab file, he needed only to build a Task Sequence including the UIU plug-in for SCCM Machine Configuration Step. That single Task Sequence could then be advertised to any Collection of PCs, regardless of manufacturer or model. Shortly after Andrew started working with the trial, he found that the drivers he needed were included and became confident that the UIU plug-in for SCCM could resolve his driver management headaches.



The trial was easy to install and run, and technical support was there to help with questions along the way.

Andrew Raulston, District Technology Coordinator

In less than ten days, Andrew went from testing the UIU plug-in for SCCM to implementing the live version in his environment. He was in contact with UIU plug-in for SCCM Support throughout his trial period and reported them to be both responsive and thorough in answering his questions. “The trial was easy to install and run, and technical support was there to help with questions along the way.”


Time Savings and No Driver Headaches


With the UIU plug-in for SCCM, Andrew can now go from bare metal to a fully functional PC in 30 minutes. His first project with the help of the UIU plug-in for SCCM involved setting up 52 new ThinkPads and 60 white boxes, and he deployed one imaging Task Sequence for all of them. He estimates that the UIU plug-in for SCCM saved him several weeks of time in initial setup, and the savings will continue as his environment grows and changes. “With the UIU plug-in for SCCM, driver management has become a non-issue for me,” reported Andrew. “The amount of time I saved was more than worth the cost of the software, especially given the varying hardware I deal with.”


Additional Resources