Creating a interval schedule vs retry queue
Hi guys,
I've seen another topic regarding "catching offline computers," but that was using the heartbeat as the interval type which requires PDQ Inventory. When we're leveraging with our customers only PDQ Deploy, we're attempting to deploy a single package to all machines over the course of a few weeks. Our current method is that we:
- Discover a target list of machines and link that to the package to be deployed
- Create and set a schedule for the package to deploy with a "Type" of "Interval" (typically 2-4 hours). With this we have the option set to "Stop deploying to computers once they succeed"
We typically let this schedule run for 1-2 weeks until we've deployed to all machines.
Could explain how this process might be a bit different than leveraging the new "Retry Queue" with similar "Retry Queue Interval" of 2-4 hours? Is there any difference rather?
Thanks for the clarifications and any suggestions.
-Ken
Comments
I am also interested in an explanation on this topic as they look to be very similar in functionality.
Retry Queue vs Interval Schedule
Short Version:
Both are similar and can accomplish the same thing, but retry is best used for deploying a specific application once while interval is best used for regular pushes.
The Long Version.
Probably the best way of understanding the difference (or the reason we have both) Retry Queue and Interval Schedule is through use cases. We’ll start with Retry Queue.
Admin Adam needs to push out a package on his network that has to be done by next Monday. He starts the deployment on Tuesday night, hitting all the machines that need the package. Adam sets his schedule options to put offline (failed) computers in the Retry Queue. Over the next several days, the retry queue shrinks to zero, meaning he was successful. Adam is happy, as are his users.
Interval Schedule, on the other hand, is perfect for Admin Anne. Her company recently developed a product that has to be updated every 30 days. Anne knows she doesn’t want to use the interval schedule for regular pushes because she has a pretty aggressive email policy on failures, and doesn’t want a lot of messages in her inbox. But in her case, she can set the interval schedule to push out her monthly updates (and can even put failures to the retry queue).
But for one-off deployments, and if you have PDQ Inventory, using heartbeat is generally the best method. That way, your deployments will only occur to online machines, negating the need for the retry queue.
Hope this helps.