What steps should be taken by departmental IT support staff prior to deploying the Engineering Base Desktop (EBD)?

The deployment of CAEN's Engineering Base Desktop should be completed by designated departmental IT support staff. IT staff should review the following pre-deployment guidelines before beginning any installation:

Departmental Responsibilities

Departmental IT support staff are responsible for:

  • Backing up important data on computers before deployment begins. All data on a computer will be lost during the deployment process.
  • Assisting end-users in restoring backed-up data.
  • Deploying and updating department-specific software.
  • Configuring printers in your department.
  • Managing user accounts and administrative access.
  • Enabling BitLocker, encrypting drives and recovering encryption keys.

Ensure the Computer is Eligible

Any computer receiving the Engineering Base Desktop:
  • Must be owned by the University of Michigan.
  • Must be on the Engineering network during the deployment process.
  • Must already have a valid Microsoft Windows license.

Backup Important Data

  • Deploying the Engineering Base Desktop partitions and formats the hard drive.
  • All data currently on the hard drive will be erased when deployment begins.
  • Departmental IT administrators are responsible for backing up all data.

Read the Deployment Guide

Pre-stage Active Directory Computer Account

A computer object must exist in Active Directory before beginning deployment. Create a computer object in the Active Directory OU named after your department inside:

adsroot.itcs.umich.edu/UMICH/Organizations/ENGIN/CAEN/CAEN Managed Desktops/Engineering Base Desktop/Windows 11

Engineering Base Desktop systems must remain nested within the Engineering Base Desktop OU to function properly. Moving them elsewhere will result in a partially configured system that may not receive security updates. For more information on pre-staging computer objects in Active Directory, please refer to the ITS Active Directory Pre-Staging Guide.

Configure Computer for Network Booting

CAEN's Engineering Base Desktop deployment is mostly automated. Answer a few questions, and a fully-functional Engineering Base Desktop system is typically up and running within an hour of initiating the process. To install the Engineering Base Desktop:

  1. Enable netbooting by navigating to the computer’s MAC address record in Bluecat Proteus, and set the MAC Pool field to coe-uefi-netboot.
  2. Ensure that when you netboot the computer, you do a UEFI netboot if you choose the coe-uefi-netboot MAC pool. It may require configuration changes in the BIOS. On newer HP computers it is the PXE Option ROM Launch Policy that needs to be changed to “UEFI only.” Other BIOS changes may be necessary as well depending on the current configuration and computer model.
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