SCCM ConfigMgr Available and Required Deployment options for content download

I have seen this questions often in social communities and online forums on this topic and how they work during content download. So i will try to explain what they mean and how they work when it comes to content download.

when you create any deployment (applications,software updates,task sequence etc) ,you will see two options for ‘Type of Deployment’ (for software updates) ,Purpose (for applications) with Required and Available. In this blog post, we will see what they mean and how they work .

 

image

 

Available:  Available deployments will not have any deadline and they meant for optional. When you choose the type of deployment as Available ,user can see the deployments in Software Center and it will never be installed automatically unless user select and install it.

When user choose to install the available deployments in Software Center ,it will start downloading the content and install it ,no matter if the client has maintenance window or not as it is initiated by User and it will proceed to install the deployment after the download but if the deployment require reboot ,it will check for MW (maintenance window) and only reboot.

In this type of deployment ,deployments will not be downloaded automatically unless user initiate the deployment.

Required: Required deployment have  available time and deadline time. When you create deployment ,you will have to set available time (For clients to download the policies and download the content ) and deadline time (for installation).

image

When machine policy runs on the client , client will download the policies that are new or updated ,evaluate the policies and inject into wmi.

If you have any deployments with future deadline date but not as soon possible (which means the current time when you do the deployment) ,client will not perform the evaluation of the deployment for content download ,instead it will wait for the deadline date for content download and install (if enough maintenance window available).

In Required deployment ,content download happens only when the deployment reaches/passes the deadline date .Once the download is finished, it will check for enough maintenance window ,if there is ,it will install right after the content download. If there is future maintenance window available ,it must wait for the MW and install it .

If you have set deadline to ‘As soon as possible which means the current time on the site server, client receive the policy ,process it and download the content immediately due to deadline behaviour but for install ,it will check if MW ,if yes,wait for the MW else install the deployment.

My Observation in software updates deployments:

Take an example that ,I have deployed few software update groups to a collection with future deadline date but available time is current date . After 60 min (default ) ,client will receive the new/updated policies ,they process it and inject into wmi --but the content will not be downloaded until it reach the deadline time.

In this case ,all my deployments are set to future deadline date ,so they will never be evaluated by software update deployment evaluation cycle unless the deadline reaches and you will not see the updates in software center. When the deadline time triggers ,patches will be downloaded and install if enough MW available.

you will only see the list of patches available in software center if it is evaluated by software update deployment evaluation cycle and this happens automatically when the deadline reaches or you can initiate the

What happens if the client downloaded the policies but you initiated the deployment evaluation ?

Once the deadline time reached, deployment evaluation starts ,it will pick the policies that are available in client WMI and start processing each update with its compliance check (require,not require or already install) and start download the updates into ccmcache.

In this scenario, the download happens when the deadline reaches but not because of the maintenance window available. Maintenance window is only for the installation of updates but not for download of updates.

For more information about how the maintenance window is calculated, take a look at https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/charlesa_us/2015/04/21/system-center-configuration-manager-2012-maintenance-windows-getting-to-know-you/

 

My Observation in Application Deployment:

Like i said how the content download happens for software updates ,it is not same for application Deployment .

For application deployment ,after the deployment to collection with available time as current time and deadline time as future time ,it took random time of 3-4 hours for the application to display in software center and also download happen automatically (Disable deadline randomisation is set to Yes but still it happens after sometime).

Hope You will find this article useful.

12 Responses to "SCCM ConfigMgr Available and Required Deployment options for content download"

  1. Hi Eswar,

    Maybe you can help me.

    I'm trying to set up ADR rule to download updates and show the in Software Centre only without installing them automatically. At the moment as soon as the ADR is run it downloads the updates and them install them automatically onto clients and servers. How can I make them available only? I know it works when I manually deploy I can choose/select Available type of deployment but with ADR this isn't the case.

    I'd appreciate your help greatly.

    Many thanks,
    Piotr

    Reply
  2. Updates will install at the deadline regardless if they're in a maintenance window or not. Maintenance windows only control whether the system reboots or not. Example: our deadline on ADRs is 8:00 PM but the maintenance window doesn't start until 10:00 PM. Updates start installing at 8:00 PM (give or take) and as soon as 10:00 PM hits they start rebooting.

    Reply
    1. Hi Michael,
      in the update deployment,user experience ,there is setting called Deadline Behavior ,when the installation deadline is reached, following the activities to be performed outside the maintenance window for software update installation.So if you have maintenance window and this option is not checked, updates will never install until and unless you enable this option or wait for the Maintanance window to trigger the installation.

      Regards,
      Eswar

      Reply
  3. Sorry but I don't agree with you...
    I already tested it. You just don't wait enough.
    Look at this thread https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/fa1b85a7-ad1a-4e6c-ab7a-16f49d0350bf/sccm-update-deployment?forum=configmanagersecurity

    It's explained :
    Available it's time from client will download the content.
    Deadline it's time from client will install the content.

    If you do available 2 day and deadline 6 days for exemple.
    user receive the policy 60min max after the deployment but don't do nothing. After 2 days, it download the content.
    If user don't choose to click on software center to install it, after 6 days, it will install automatically.

    Deadline is just for installation and not for download.

    Then, there is randomization 2H for deadline.

    Reply
    1. Disable Deadline randomization is selected to Yes for all my clients and even after the 2 hours after the deployment (application) ,still there is no notifications in software center or content download but if i run the powershell script to see the deployments ,i can see what i have deployed to the client.
      I did thorough testing for software updates and content was not downloaded unless it hit the deadline (no matter what MW has) and same has been confirmed with Microsoft engineer during the other day call.
      For application deployment, i can wait till tomorrow as my deployment future date is 6th Aug so i can check tomorrow if something happens on the client for content download.

      Regards,
      Eswar

      Reply
      1. Ok ,i just check the status of the deployment for the app ,it downloaded the content after 3-4 hours of time though the deadline set to future .I may have to verify the same is application for software updates or not.
        I will keep the blog post updated upon the software update testing as well.

        Regards,
        Eswar

        Reply
    1. Hi,
      Yes,for software updates ,i have tested it and then blogged but for applications ,i did testing now and here are the results.
      1.Deploy application to collection with future deadline date ,login to machine, run the machine policy ,verify the policy downloaded and processed .
      2. Check if the application that has future deadline appear in software center or not ,and also see if the content being downloaded though deadline date set to future. In this case ,i did not see the content downloading and also no application in software center.
      3.Move back to console ,change the deadline date to current instead of future .
      4.Go to client,run the machine policy ,make sure the updated policy downloaded ,wait for a minute for client to process and i see the application in software center and also downloaded but waiting for MW to install.

      If you want ,you can give a try with this simple test in your environment and let me know the feedback.
      I have updated the blog post with these testing scenarios.

      Regards,
      Eswar

      Reply

Leave a Reply to matteu31 Cancel reply