Deadline, Business Hours vs. Maintenance Windows

I read the blog about Business Hours vs. Maintenance Windows, but I still have two questions
http://blogs.technet.com/b/server-cloud/archive/2012/03/28/business-hours-vs-maintenance-windows-with-system-center-2012-configuration-manager.aspx
Event 1: Application A
No Maintenance Windows & No Wake on LAN;
Business hours is 5am to 10pm;
User start laptop at 8AM and close at 5PM every day;
Deadline is 11PM, Thursday;
Available is 9Am, Monday, User clicks "Install Later".
So when A will be installed?
Event 2: Application B
Maintenance Windows is 1AM to 4AM , NO Wake on LAN, B has not been configured that install when out of Maintenance Windows;
Business hours is 5am to 10pm;
User start laptop at 8AM and close at 5PM every day;
Deadline is 11PM, Thursday;
Available is 9Am, Monday, User clicks "Install Later".
User never start laptop in Maintenance Windows time, so if it mean that B will never be installed?

To add a couple of clarifying points to the article linked:
- Business hours are meaningless after a deployment's deadline and are only used before the deadline.
- Business hours are only relevant if a user has explicitly stated for a deployment to be enforced outside of their business hours.
- The intent of business hours is to allow users to schedule enforcement of a required deployment before a deadline but outside of their work hours so it never interrupts them.
The article does say all of this, just not as directly.
For Event 2 (application b), this is why using maintenance windows usually doesn't work well for workstations. Why would the business hours be set for 5AM to 10PM though? That really makes no sense based on my third point above. Of course in this case, if
the system is totally off, it doesn't really matter anyway.
Jason | http://blog.configmgrftw.com | @jasonsandys

Similar Messages

Commit changes at deadline or during a maintenance window (requires restarts)?

What happens in an application deployment if I uncheck "Commit changes at deadline or during a maintenance window (requires restarts)"? If I have an application deployed to a collection with a maintenance window with a scheduled to be available
now with an installation deadline of one week, what would happed? What about if the application was deployed to a collection that did not have a maintenance window and there were no maintenance windows defined in any other collection the member clients
were in?

This is for Embdedded devices, like ThinClients.
That means write filter commits either at deadline or during a maintenance window.
Your application still installs as you schedule it, available now and install week from now. If you have maintenance window and selected to not install or reboot outside of maintenance window, then everything happens within maintenance window. If you don't
check that box for write filter, then your app or setting you have just pushed does not get saved when device is rebooted.
Same scenario with no maintenance windows. If you don't have maintenance window then your app downloads and installs as you schedule the dates. Write filter would not commit these changes and everything would go away after reboot.

Maintenance Window not honoured?

Hi Folks,
The more I read through these forums on how the Maintenance Window works the more I feel my deployment was set-up correctly. However, I had a number of workstations unexpectedly install Win7 SP1 and restart during business hours (which are defined as
06:00 to 23:00 with a Configuration Baseline).
My SP1 deployment is set-up as follows:
Set as Install, Required, pre-deploy software to user's primary device (checked),
Advertised at 08:30 with a deadline of 23:30 the same day (last Friday)
User Experience is 'Show All Notifications', and has 'Software Installation' and 'System Restart (if required to complete the installation)' unchecked.
No restart flags specified on SP1 command line, just using /quiet and /nodialog
Should Config Manager enforce specific behaviour regardless of the applications intended behaviour set to 'No specific action'
However, a small number of users turned their workstations off when leaving last Friday. When they came in today (Monday morning) the installation was triggered straightway.
Checking the logs at one of those affected I can see that the Maintenance Window is detected but for some reason is not honoured. I can't see any mention of the user triggering the restart either.
Am I missing something?
Thanks,
Mic

Business hours and maintenance windows are two different things. Business hours will not prevent the installation from happening when the deadline is reached. For a very good read about this see:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/server-cloud/archive/2012/03/28/business-hours-vs-maintenance-windows-with-system-center-2012-configuration-manager.aspx
My Blog: http://www.petervanderwoude.nl/
Follow me on twitter: pvanderwoude

How to set Business Hours with script?

I have a single SCCM 2012 SP1 CU4 server running on Windows Server 2012.
My business has multiple locations and some of them have different hours of operation. I am wanting to change the "Business Hours" for some of these sites and looking for the best way to do it.
I found this guide that uses PowerShell, but I get a "Script is not signed" error:
http://powersheller.wordpress.com/2012/11/20/sccm-2012-setting-software-center-business-hours-with-a-compliance-configuration-item/
I saw Torsten's example using a VBscript, but I get an "Incorrect function" error:
http://www.mssccmfaq.de/2012/03/26/software-center-business-hours-auslesen-setzen/
Both of those web pages look like they were done a couple years ago so I hope everything still applies.
Any help would be great!
Thanks

For the Powershell one... make sure you have two things. In the ConfigItem, for the Compliance test, you did check the box about "run the specified remediate script ..." right?
for the Baseline, when you assigned it, you did check the box about remediate when you deployed it to the collection?
If either or both of those are missing, what you are doing is monitor only... so the remediation script won't ever actually run, so it's monitoring only. So it would make sense that you are getting non-compliants back. You aren't ever asking
it to really run the remediation piece.
EDIT: Just referencing this here... just in case:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/server-cloud/archive/2012/03/28/business-hours-vs-maintenance-windows-with-system-center-2012-configuration-manager.aspx Sometimes people misunderstand what a business hours definition means vs. what a Maintenance Window
(Service Window) means in Configmgr 2012. If you aren't 100% positive what the difference is, read through that blog just to get it straight.
Standardize. Simplify. Automate.

Maintenance Windows Set to Use UTC Time Actually Using Local Time on Client

Hey All -
When patching servers last month, we ran into an issue on a couple of collections. This month, it's occurring on all of them so far.
The Issue
We have about 40 collections for various server groups. Each has a single maintenance window set for roughly a 4 hour window using UTC time.
When advertising a task sequence (or something else) to run only inside of the window, it fails. Examining the execmgr.log shows the error: "CExecutionRequest::The program may never run because of Service Window restrictions."
If I open SCCM Client Center, connect to one of the systems, and view Service Windows, I see that they are set, but were set using the hours I set but as if I did not choose UTC when I did. We are in CST which is a 5-06 hour difference therefore it
fails to deploy.
Only Fix So Far
The only fix found so far is to delete the maintenance window and re-create it using the exact same settings. After this is done and policy refreshes, Client Center shows the windows correctly.
The problem with the above fix is that at some point, they seemingly are being corrupted again as some which were fixed last month seem to must be re-created again this month.
Screenshots / Logs
Maintenance Window
8:00PM in our timezone should make it start at 2:00PM CST
SCCM Client Center Viewing Window of System in Collection Same Window Above Was Applied to
Any ideas or suggestions? Thanks!
Ben K.

Hi,
Please review the blog explaining about maintenance windows
and hopefully it will help you.
Business Hours vs. Maintenance Windows with System Center 2012 Configuration Manager
http://blogs.technet.com/b/server-cloud/archive/2012/03/28/business-hours-vs-maintenance-windows-with-system-center-2012-configuration-manager.aspx
We
are trying to better understand customer views on social support experience, so your participation in this
interview project would be greatly appreciated if you have time.
Thanks for helping make community forums a great place.

Maintenance Windows for restart requires app deployment

I want to push out the application that does require the restart to work correctly. How do I make sure to set the maintenance windows so it won't install on the customer computers during office hours? It needs to be start install out of office hours and
do the reboot. How? thanks

More info:
Business Hours vs. Maintenance Windows with System Center 2012 Configuration Manager
http://blogs.technet.com/b/server-cloud/archive/2012/03/28/business-hours-vs-maintenance-windows-with-system-center-2012-configuration-manager.aspx
We
are trying to better understand customer views on social support experience, so your participation in this
interview project would be greatly appreciated if you have time.
Thanks for helping make community forums a great place.

Maintenance Window & User Experience setting

Hello,
We're having a lot of issues regulating our Windows Updates, mind you I consider myself novice to intermediate when it comes to SCCM has I have been managing the SCCM software and update deployments for a year or so now at work.
My question is the following:
I have Software (Windows) Updates scheduled to be pushed to every workstation on the network on the First Monday morning of every month.
All of them have an ASAP availability and installation Window so when comes 00:00:01 AM the patches are installed.
My issue are the multiple reboots in case of update dependencies and or faulty update patches that won't go through until another reboot. Some time it could extend for days, so for the time being the reboots are not enforced.
I would like to activate the reboots and from my understanding if a maintenance window is say set Monday 1AM to 6AM, all the updates with a deadline will be applied.
Now i'm wondering two things: First, in the deployment properties in the "Write filter handling for Windows..." under "User Experience" section there is a checkbox that sites "Commit changes
at deadline or during a maintenance window (requires restarts)". Does this mean that updates will be applied ASAP OR IF a maintenance window is defined it will overrule the deadline as soon as the deadline is over and apply the updates during
the window and this has nothing to do with Business Hours set on the end-user client Software Center?
Secondly, with ConfigMgr 2012 SP1 in "Assets and Compliance"
when I right click the properties of computer group to set the actual maintenance window there's a check box
"Apply this schedule only to task sequences", I'm sure the answer is clear, but what exactly does it refer to, like imaging a computer through PXE boot... or?
thanks!
Eric

UPDATE:
I think I found the answer to my issue....
In the deployment section under "Deadline Behaviour"
"When the installation deadline is reached, allow the following activities
to be performed outside of the maintenance window:"
- Software updates installation
- System
restart (if necessary)
Those options were checked...... so the reboot ensued anyhow. >;(
thanks for all your help guys, much appreciated!
Eric

Maintenance Windows - Best Practices

One of the features of SCCM I've looked forward to the most are Maintenance Windows. The Best Practice Recommendations (in the Help File) suggests that:
"....you should create specific collections for this purpose rather than use the default collections"
If I want to implement Maintenance Windows accross the board, do I need to configure every collection that I create? Will the client get their Maintenance Windows settings as a result of an advertisement on a collection they're in? Or will they get the settings simply by being in a configured collection?
Finally, if I create an advertisement / deployment with, say a 2-week deadline, should I avoid Maintenance Windows for this scenario? The deadline won't override any Maintenance Windows will it?

I can't tell you what to do. However, trying to answer your previous post, I said you could do that. But if you tell the advert/deployment to ignore maintenance windows, then you are not adhering to them at all, and you may get deployments outside the time frame you intended.
If you want to deploy to users, and let them deploy independently, then you don't need maintenance windows at all. But if you want maintenance windows so that assignments are deployed at the deadline, but according to windows, then you have windows defined.
If an assignment is configured to allow end user to run independently of the assignment, then IF a user does that, it ignores maintenance windows. Windows are only adhered to by scheduled tasks, not optional ones that are user driven. So don't configure the assignment to ignore windows, as then it might deploy automatically at the deadline, at a time you didn't want on some servers.
Leave windows inplace, but if users run the advertisement or patch deployment on their own, we don't adhere to windows.
I'd probably look at two templates - one for users and one for servers. The user template would not suppress so the users could deploy manually (clicking the icon). The server template would suppress notifications, and just wait for the deadline, and the appropriate window.
Does that make sense?

Business Hours & Service Window

Sorry for basic question - I seen the article on Maintenance. Window vs Business Hours but does the business hour time impact the deployment of Software Updates and Forefront definitions?
I'm troubleshooting some out of date Forefront clients and seeing service window not available so wondering whether the Business Hours come into play - we have no client Maintenance Windows and all Software Updates are deployed with a past deadline i.e.
install now
On the subject of business Hours are they not controlled via policy ? - out of the box its set 7am to 10pm and we don't want users to be able to change any settings here.
Ian Burnell, London (UK)

Business hours do not come into play after the deadline was reached.
You cannot set business hours via policy, but there is a script on my blog that can set them.
Torsten Meringer | http://www.mssccmfaq.de

Software Center - past - due will be installed & maintenance/business hours

Hi All
I am struggling with some issues with installing software on clients.
Much of the software I have deployed can end up sitting in client software center as 'past due - will be installed' or 'pastdue - will be retried'.
They'll sit there until someone does something..meaning.. You need to manually start the deployment.. Then it installs fine.
I always set ' User Experience - When installation deadline is reached..... to "Software Installation" ticked.
There's apparently a client settings in Administration-->Client Settings->"computer Agent" which can affect the install as well "Additional Software manages the deployment......" this is set to "no".
Business hours on clients are set to 5-22.. I believe this is standard.
There is NO maintenance windows set for any of my collections.
What's strange is that some clients install software I deploy just fine.. while others I deploy to at the same time.. can leave the software as 'past due'. Meaning some clients install as they should while others end up in "past due".
Can someone guide me in the right direction..
Kindest regards, Martin

Hi Torsten..
Good call..
This is what VLC player returns in monitoring->deployments:
Failed to locate content error 0x87d01107 Failed to access all the provided program locations. This program may retry if the maximum retry count has not been reached.
but again.. if I go to the client and click on "try again" .. it installs..
Kindest regards, Martin

SCCM 2012 R2 - Maintenance Windows + Installation deadline ASAP + Deadline Randomization

There are a ton of questions out there regarding MWs and deadlines etc, but I haven't found any yet with my specific question:
If I:
Use an ADR that sets the software available time and installation
deadline both to ASAP
AND
put my machines into maintenance windows
AND
enabled deadline randomization (disabled by default in SP1 and R2)
Will the deadline randomization take place during the maintenance window?
I know the default setting for the randomization is 0-120 minutes so if I match that and make my MW 2 hours, can I expect all the machines in that MW to patch ONLY during the MW but at a random time during those 2 hrs?

I tried for a couple days and could not get any of my 3 test machines to patch during the maintenance window with deadline randomization enabled.
Yesterday I disabled it and over the night, 2 of my 3 machines patched during the MW.
It doesn't appear to like the proposed setup - I would have anticipated them patching during the MW but during a random time between 0-120 min from when the MW started

Maintenance Windows and Installation Deadline

I know this has been discussed many times in the past, but I wanted to clarify in my mind what I think happens.
I have a maintenance window on a collection that is daily between 3:30am and 5:30am. I create a deployment for software updates with an available time at 2:00am. I specify the installation deadline in the deployment for 3:00am.
In the Deadline behavior (user experience) I do not have either option checked (Software updates installation and System restart). So, my MW will not be ignored.
With these settings, the needed updates will be downloaded, but not installed until the start of the maintenance window at 3:30am. (in essence, the deadline should be "before" the MW if I want them to install at the next MW).
Thanks!

I did:
<![LOG[New Service Window Policy notification received.]LOG]!><time="14:14:52.483+300" date="01-15-2015" component="ServiceWindowManager" context="" type="1" thread="996" file="servicewindowmanager.cpp:217">
<![LOG[CCM::ServiceWindowManager::CServiceWindowHandler::OnPolicyCreated - A policy change has occurred. New policy has been created.]LOG]!><time="14:14:52.483+300" date="01-15-2015" component="ServiceWindowManager"
context="" type="1" thread="996" file="servicewindowhandler.cpp:2044">
<![LOG[    Populating instance of ServiceWindow with ID={3DE9CD79-CC8A-4CDD-AD75-74191AB07BFA}, ScheduleString=786F1B4010100008, Type=4]LOG]!><time="14:14:52.483+300" date="01-15-2015" component="ServiceWindowManager"
context="" type="1" thread="996" file="servicewindowhandler.cpp:104">
<![LOG[        StartTime is 1/16/2015 3:30:00 AM]LOG]!><time="14:14:52.483+300" date="01-15-2015" component="ServiceWindowManager" context="" type="1"
thread="996" file="servicewindowhandler.cpp:176">
<![LOG[        Duration for the Service Window is Total days: 0, hours: 02, mins: 00, secs: 00]LOG]!><time="14:14:52.483+300" date="01-15-2015" component="ServiceWindowManager"
context="" type="1" thread="996" file="servicewindowhandler.cpp:106">
<![LOG[    The Service Window={3DE9CD79-CC8A-4CDD-AD75-74191AB07BFA} has started at 1/16/2015 3:30:00 AM]LOG]!><time="03:30:00.071+300" date="01-16-2015" component="ServiceWindowManager"
context="" type="1" thread="5032" file="servicewindowhandler.cpp:1200">
<![LOG[OnIsServiceWindowAvailable called with: Runtime:1, Type:4]LOG]!><time="03:30:00.071+300" date="01-16-2015" component="ServiceWindowManager" context="" type="1" thread="5420"
file="servicewindowhandler.cpp:2258">
<![LOG[        Biggest Active Service Window has ID = {3DE9CD79-CC8A-4CDD-AD75-74191AB07BFA} having Starttime=1/16/2015 3:30:00 AM]LOG]!><time="03:30:00.071+300" date="01-16-2015"
component="ServiceWindowManager" context="" type="1" thread="5420" file="servicewindowhandler.cpp:1336">
<![LOG[
Duration is 0 days, 02 hours, 00 mins, 00 secs]LOG]!><time="03:30:00.071+300" date="01-16-2015" component="ServiceWindowManager" context="" type="1" thread="5420" file="servicewindowhandler.cpp:1337">
<![LOG[ActiveServiceWindow has 7200 seconds left]LOG]!><time="03:30:00.071+300" date="01-16-2015" component="ServiceWindowManager" context="" type="1" thread="5420" file="servicewindowhandler.cpp:1248">
<![LOG[Program can run! Setting *canProgramRun to TRUE]LOG]!><time="03:30:00.071+300" date="01-16-2015" component="ServiceWindowManager" context="" type="1" thread="5420" file="servicewindowhandler.cpp:1249">
<![LOG[OnIsServiceWindowAvailable called with: Runtime:900, Type:2]LOG]!><time="03:30:00.071+300" date="01-16-2015" component="ServiceWindowManager" context="" type="1" thread="4760"
file="servicewindowhandler.cpp:2258">
<![LOG[No Restricting Service Windows exist. It can therefore run...]LOG]!><time="03:30:00.071+300" date="01-16-2015" component="ServiceWindowManager" context="" type="1" thread="4760"
file="servicewindowhandler.cpp:1510">

Deadline VS Maintenance Window

I have configured the device collection for maintenance at 12am-6am everyday.I recently deployed windows update as required and deadline at 5pm. My understanding is that after 5pm, the update will wait till the next maintenance windows before it's installed.
However, the updates keeps installing at 5pm or whatever deadline i configure.
Am i having a wrong assumption or is my SCCM not configured correctly?

That is proper assumption only if under User Experience tab on software deployment you have
not selected any check boxes under Deadline behavior.

SCCM 2012 R2 - Maintenance Windows - a few questions

Let's say I configure a maintenance windows (MW) for the 2nd saturday of every month from 6p-10p and I have 100 servers in this maintenance window,
are they all going to try and patch and reboot at the same time?
(Assuming they are all online)
This brings up concerns when trying to plan maintenance windows for our servers - especially when we are 80%+ virtualized. I can't find anything that states the sequence of events that happen when a machine goes to install patches based on a MW.
Do they wait on a heartbeat? Do they typically kick off right at the front of the MW? Does SCCM spread the installs out?
We currently use WSUS (working on migrating to SCCM) and in WSUS we have a ton of groups based on the hour so we spread out the machines being patched. I am trying to avoid having so many different options and times and instead just using MWs.
Another issue we are going to run into is certain machines need to be patched/rebooted in a certain order and with others we just cant have them all down at the same time (e.g. domain controllers). I supposed I could create 2-3 phases per patch weekend to
spread those machines out - is that the best option? (for instance; on the 2nd Saturday we have MW Phase 1 from 6p-8, MW Phase 2 from 8-10, and MW Phase 3 from 10-midnight)

Let's say I configure a maintenance windows (MW) for the 2nd saturday of every month from 6p-10p and I have 100 servers in this maintenance window,
are they all going to try and patch and reboot at the same time?
(Assuming they are all online)
This brings up concerns when trying to plan maintenance windows for our servers - especially when we are 80%+ virtualized. I can't find anything that states the sequence of events that happen when a machine goes to install patches based on a MW.
Do they wait on a heartbeat? Do they typically kick off right at the front of the MW? Does SCCM spread the installs out?
We currently use WSUS (working on migrating to SCCM) and in WSUS we have a ton of groups based on the hour so we spread out the machines being patched. I am trying to avoid having so many different options and times and instead just using MWs.
Another issue we are going to run into is certain machines need to be patched/rebooted in a certain order and with others we just cant have them all down at the same time (e.g. domain controllers). I supposed I could create 2-3 phases per patch weekend to
spread those machines out - is that the best option? (for instance; on the 2nd Saturday we have MW Phase 1 from 6p-8, MW Phase 2 from 8-10, and MW Phase 3 from 10-midnight)
Hi,
I often help customers with this scenario that you are facing. I'll try to answer your questions as clearly as possible.
A) Yes, if you have 100 servers in one MW during 6p-10p, they will start at 6p if they have recieved the policy before that. What you can do is to activate the Deadline randomization that was introduced in ConfigMgr 2012 SP1. You can read more on that here
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg682067.aspx
B) ConfigMgr does not wait for a heartbeat or anything like that. You need to manage to logic to move your workload from hosts before you take them down for a reboot. VMM could help you with this IIRC. Or at least SCSM SMA and PowerShell. The sequence is
basically that they install the patches, if a reboot is required, it will reboot at the end of the patches.
C) Yes you need to create different MWs and place those servers in the MW order that they need to be rebooted. Be careful tough. If you have ServerA, ServerB and ServerC that need to reboot in that order. You place them in MWs in that order. You might end
up getting patches to some or all of those servers from a Patch Tuesday but perhaps only ServerB will need a reboot so only ServerB will reboot and thus put you in a place you don't want to be. To solve this, create a re-running package/program deployment
that reboots ALL servers that are sensitive each and EVERY MW.
Tim Nilimaa | Blog: http://infoworks.tv | Twitter: @timnilimaa

SCCM fails to deploy Patches to client with in the maintenance windows.

Hi,
I am new to Patchng through SCCM just 7 months of experience.
I deploy the patches regular month basis as microsoft release the patches every month. till now the patch deployment was happening smoothly, but from last month i am facing issue like the SCCM failed to push the patches with in the provided maintenance window.
even if the maintenance window over client will not get install.
i have checked the enforcement status report for the same collection which i deployed, the status is always downloading updtaes.
We have collection called Workstation and servers, both the collections compliance is less like 20% or lesser than that.
Arround 800 Workstations deployed and given deadline 10 days. with suppressed reboot.
Arround 70 Servers deployed with with automatic reboot via Maintenance window.
deadline to install is 1 hour ahead of maintenance window.
It would be great if any one suggest the solution to make software update deployment through SCCM with in the maintenance window.

Vista is not a supported OS for Acrobat XI Pro.

Deadline, Business Hours vs. Maintenance Windows

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for