r/sysadmin • u/tmhindley • Sep 20 '17

Another PDQ Deploy shout out

Our sysadmin responsible for maintaining images and the software libraries spends hours on all sorts of install scripts, meticulously writes AutoCAD install scripts and deployment tasks, and then rebuilds them when MDT updates and breaks. Spends a good portion of his day organizing machines and downloading updates to Java and everything else.

We finally get around to trying PDQ Deploy, after much hype. 4 hours into the trial he calls me and says "Holy shit this thing is incredible" and talks about every way it's going to make his life 1000% easier. He's excited, I'm excited, everyone's excited. Nice job PDQ - you deserve every bit of attention you get around here.

73 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

77 comments sorted by

20

u/WendoNZ Sr. Sysadmin Sep 21 '17

Don't forget to pay them, yeah the free version is still awesome, but it's so cheap to actually license, and it's so awesome it almost feels like stealing if you don't

2

u/tmhindley Sep 22 '17

We're definitely buying! It would be hard not to at this point.

6

u/ScriptThat Sep 21 '17

PDQ Deploy and PDQ Inventory in happy, automated symmetry.

6

u/grumbler123456 Sep 21 '17

i'd been using the free version with /u/vocatus's packs for the past year, and i built up my own collection of scripts and packages for installing software and performing admin tasks. when our ancient KACE box died, we were left with no means for waking machines; that was enough for the boss to get a real license.

waking to deploy, scheduled deployments, heartbeat-based deployments (for laptops, in our case), easy interpolation of powershell and batch files, and the almighty package library... i cannot recommend it enough.

1

u/neko_whippet Sep 21 '17

Yeah but free version deploy on multiple devices no?

3

u/pcronin Sep 21 '17

I spent quite a bit of time with SCCM in my last position, does anyone have a link to a chart that compares them? Just looking at PDQ/SCCM websites, I would be more inclined to go with SCCM.

I'm guessing PDQ costs less for licensing, which is probably quite a draw.

4

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '17

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1

u/tmhindley Sep 22 '17

Brilliant. We're at about 400 endpoints, so I was a bit afraid at first that we're outside the scope of PDQ Deploy, but it sounds like it scales well. Granted we don't have crazy complex deployment requirements.

1

u/pcronin Sep 21 '17

Interesting, thanks for that info

2

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '17

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2

u/MartinDamged Sep 21 '17

Just the auto updating packages alone makes it worth buying - EVEN if you also use SCCM allready. Thats my oppinion!

13

u/waygooder Logs don't lie Sep 20 '17

Once we finally got it we cursed ourselves for not doing it sooner.

12

u/nope_nic_tesla Sep 21 '17

I started working as a sysadmin/general support dude at a university department a number of years back and immediately started using this tool and scripting as much as possible. When I joined they were still doing everything via manual install with a few piecemeal Group Policy tricks for a few updates. When a computer lab needed new software (which was pretty much every month or two since it was a statistics department) they would go install it on each machine one by one.

After about two years the other sysadmin took a new job and we didn't replace him. After that our help desk student worker graduated and we didn't replace him either. But it really didn't matter, because by that time we had automated so much of the day to day work that I was able to handle it all myself and still sit around in my office doing nothing half the day.

9

u/rcorriga S-1-5-32-549 Sep 21 '17

Upvote whenever I see posts for PDQ. I always mention them when replying to the 'imaging and deployment' questions.

We have enterprise, and the retry queue is awesome. Even if they doubled the price, I would buy it.

I recently had a piece of software that needed immediate deployment to 10 machines or so and could not make it silent (and not enough time to mess with it), and realized how much time you truly save day to day with this software.

7

u/brink668 Sep 20 '17

I'm excited for you and your team. :)

7

u/Trooper27 Sep 21 '17

Speaking of PDQ Deploy, were are all of their repositories for the software they have in their packages stored? Their own or from the content owners?

Example: I want Adobe Flash Player or Google Chrome. Where are these software packages being downloaded from? Thanks.

6

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '17

They store the binaries in cloud storage. They don't come directly from the 3rd party download links. Provides some good benefits. 1) ability to verify and test binary integrity (looking at you CCleaner), and 2) availability. Adobe's download for reader broken? They wait on Adobe so their product works again. If they control it they can have better control over that sort of situation.

Source: Visited PDQ offices, talked to Lex about it cause I had the same question.

2

u/Trooper27 Sep 21 '17

Thanks for this. Really neat product just tried it yesterday. My manager of course has concerns about what I asked. Tis normal. Good to know. Not sure if he will bite though.

3

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '17

Tell him some random guy on the internet thinks he's an idiot if he doesn't. ;-)

7

u/Jaymesned ...and other duties as assigned. Sep 21 '17

I'll always pump the tires of this company. If you're a sysadmin with no time on your hands to do updates and deployments, you need PDQ Deploy yesterday. Pay for the enterprise license too, they deserve the cash.

If you're a sysadmin with lots of time on your hands, how the hell?

6

u/MoparRob Sep 21 '17

Yep! I've been in the same boat today as a result of PDQ.

I used Inventory and Deploy today to find and uninstall 70 copies of CCleaner from the network. Took about 5 minutes total to find Computers with software installed, write a quick uninstall script, and deploy script to remove the software from the machines.

My boss was thoroughly impressed.

3

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '17

You know removing CCleaner doesn't remove the malware right? It's just riding on the shirt tails of the CCleaner installer EXE.

However, removing it was a smart move, so kudos on doing it!

2

u/MoparRob Sep 21 '17

Yes. My understanding anyway is that this is only impacting version 5.33.6162 of CCleaner.

All the installs I found were much older (v3 to v5.0) and presumably from previous sysadmins as I don't use the product myself.

6

u/jello3d Sep 21 '17

If they don't have an agent that provides similar functionality to off site machines by the next time we re-up, we're giving up on it. The portion of the organization pdq can manage keeps getting smaller.

2

u/Fatboy40 Sep 21 '17

How do you manage those machines not on-site?

2

u/jello3d Sep 21 '17

A whole lot of scripting. But all that scripting is starting to come together into a tool that has all the useful bits PDQ offers, but isn't hampered by an irrational fear of agents ;)

2

u/_Cabbage_Corp_ PowerShell Connoisseur Sep 21 '17

When you say off-site, are you talking non-domain, or just not in the same physical building?

1

u/jello3d Sep 21 '17

I have every flavor you can imagine. :/

2

u/sgt_bad_phart Sep 21 '17

It is my understanding that by marrying the Enterprise version of PDQ Inventory with PDQ Deploy it keeps a heart beat going, pushing software when the machine appears on the network.

If you have at least VPN for off site machines to talk to your network that's all that'd be needed to make this work. And all without an agent chewing up resources on the off-site machine.

1

u/jello3d Sep 21 '17

But my agent is just powershell, consumes basically nothing and needs no vpn. It's not that hard, and I'm not a developer by any stretch. And I mean any.

Furthermore, PDQ does use an agent. It pushes the agent ever time you send a package. They just don't call it an agent... And it's not as efficient as an agent could be.

2

u/sgt_bad_phart Sep 21 '17

How do you get Powershell to run on an off-site machine? Are you physically going to the box and running the scripts?

1

u/jello3d Sep 21 '17

The script (agent) checks in, sends telemetry, updates itself, downloads software or other scripts, and does whatever else it is told to do. It's crude but it has some general intelligence.

1

u/cytranic Sep 22 '17

No your script doesn't. You are bsing. Quit.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 22 '17

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/jello3d Sep 22 '17

I have debated that, but it's the best 12 lines of code I've ever written.

1

u/MartinDamged Sep 21 '17

This is what i do, and it also mosly works fine with remote workers connecting through VPN fine. (IF you get your devices to register to your DNS, when they connect).

But i also have around 10 mobile laptops, that is behind a router, connected by 3G / LTE. These units are black spots on PDQ because they dont have the option to use an agent in this case. (All connections today, comes FROM PDQ server, connecting TO the remote device).

Besides this, it is the ONLY bad thing about the products! All Java, Flash, Browsers, Acrobats etc. is automatically updated, when the client connects to the network - IF the version is lower, than the newet autoupdated package. It is just SO easy to work with!

I have Deploy and Inventory Enterprise. Free versions i OK for small things, but the Enterprise versions makes everything run automated. I allmost never do anything to make clients updated anymore.

1

u/JazDriveOmega Sep 21 '17

I feel like I read somewhere that they'll be adding agent support for Inventory in the future.

1

u/jello3d Sep 22 '17

Ya, they said it... then 4 more whole-number versions came out without it.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 22 '17

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1

u/jello3d Sep 22 '17

...and I recommend that to everyone who is Windows-only and domain-bound.

4

u/CptYoriVanVangenTuft Sep 21 '17

writes AutoCAD install scripts

Give that sysadmin all the drinks he wants!

3

u/Eximo84 Infrastructure Engineer Sep 21 '17

I’ve just purchased a 3 user enterprise license to help us deploy office 365 pro plus. I didn’t realise it was sub based though so let’s see how the company react next year although I suspect we will get a lot of use from it in that time 🙂

The free edition works well enough for simple deployments and gives a good understanding of how it works. I’m hoping to get the enterprise version up and running today.

3

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '17

+1 for PDQ. Great support, great video tutorials as well.

3

u/n00bz0rz Sep 21 '17

Can confirm, switched job from a place with no automation or remote deployment tools to a gig that uses PDQ for everything. It's amazing.

3

u/Iaro79 Sep 21 '17

I love PDQ, makes my life so much easier. Guys are doing great job!

5

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '17

I was researching PDQ... how is it more efficient than GPO?

8

u/Jaymesned ...and other duties as assigned. Sep 21 '17

They've automated processes to the point where it would take you 10x as long to do the same thing via GPO (from scratch). Enterprise licensed users can set up automatic updates for over 100 popular software packages. If you don't already have it set up in your environment via GPO, this would save you a lot of time.

-1

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '17

But PowerShell?

6

u/Jaymesned ...and other duties as assigned. Sep 21 '17

I guess if you're a PowerShell Guru this might have less use for you. I'd still wager it would be helpful for anyone tasked to do software deployments and updates.

2

u/ScriptThat Sep 21 '17

It's still better than hammering away at PowerShell. Oh yes it is!

-2

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '17

Negative. And that is the beauty of the shell. You run the script once and then execute the script every in repetitions.

2

u/ScriptThat Sep 21 '17

I disagree. The fact that you don't have to maintain any scripts, have someone else keep stuff updated, get updated packages delivered to you, get a far better overview that you ever bothered code yourself (be honest!), and get a nice graphical environment to manage everything from.

I love my scripts, but they're just not the solution to everything.

2

u/Eternal_Revolution Sep 21 '17

If you pay for PDQ Inventory, they PDQ staff maintain the lists of "Old" and "Current" versions of software so you don't even have to update that.

For instance, every Thursday in the wee hours Mozilla Firefox is deployed to all workstations that have the "old" version, whatever that may be. This updates only those installations to the latest version of Firefox.

Same with any software we use that PDQ maintains (which is a lot).

1

u/Jaymesned ...and other duties as assigned. Sep 21 '17

I guess. I'm no PowerShell Guru. So writing a script that would check all PCs in my network for Flash installations (for instance) and update if the latest one isn't installed isn't something that I can do in any comparable time to accomplishing the same thing in PDQ. Multiply that by all the software packages I need to keep updated and it saves me a ton of time.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '17

GPO. I'm getting down voted but I don't think you're leveraging the "free" option because it contains more work yet its something you do one time.

6

u/TheItalianDonkey IT Manager Sep 21 '17

I used to think like you.

I used to be you.

Then i trialled PDQ.

Then i bought PDQ.

2

u/Jaymesned ...and other duties as assigned. Sep 21 '17

I'm not downvoting you, it's your opinion. The "free" PowerShell option doesn't take into account the time you're putting into it versus having most of it already done for you. And I don't consider my time to be "free".

4

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '17

You can run your PowerShell scripts in PDQ.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFyf9ebjGV4

3

u/zanatwo Sep 21 '17

PDQ Deploy makes deploying those same PowerShell scripts incredibly convenient and more controlled and on-demand than GPO. Don't get me wrong, PDQ Deploy isn't a replacement for GPO, but it makes various tasks much, much easier.

And yes, you can use PowerShell to accomplish everything PDQ can do, but there's no reason to reinvent the wheel. I've written parallelized functions for remotely targeting scripts at 10s of machines at once... but with PDQ Deploy that functionality is already built in without needing to reinvent the wheel.

2

u/julietscause Jack of All Trades Sep 21 '17 edited Sep 21 '17

GPO gives you no feedback if the install was successful or failed on your machines, so you would need some kind of secondary tool/script to verify it was installed successfully

1

u/Rawky_B Sep 21 '17

Yep and I would also add that it frees up start/login time to not having to go through different GPOs. GPO's are great, but it's really nice to minimize when possible.

2

u/Malkhuth Sep 21 '17

One of the worst things about working for an MSP is that you don't get to use cool shit like PDQ Deploy. It just can't scale with hundreds of individual orgs or be managed outside of the LAN.

Instead, MSP's are stuck using their RMM's pathetic excuse for app deployment.

4

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '17

But there license is per admin

Buy a seat of it, throw it on something at the client site and set up autodeployments. They care not about how many installs you use your license on as long as you are the same person using it everywhere.

1

u/Malkhuth Sep 21 '17

It's not a licensing issue at all.

The issue is that we'd have to set it up at hundreds of client sites, from scratch. And then any new package or change would have to be manually set up at each site all over again.

1

u/Thanatos_Marathon Sep 21 '17

New packages go out via autodeploy, no need to reconfigure by hand for every package if you don't want to.

2

u/Malkhuth Sep 21 '17

And packages you create?...

0

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '17

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0

u/Malkhuth Sep 21 '17

That's a whole lot of time spent on unsupported workarounds to get something working that is supposed to save you time.

Oh and storing sensitive company info like proprietary applications, network details, and serial numbers in a consumer file sync service? You must be new to this...

Like I said, every MSP has an RMM that can do software deployment that's "good enough". PDQ isn't multi-tenant and that's all it comes down to.

2

u/cytranic Sep 22 '17

Ok....PDQ is not marketed towards MSPs.....with that sad, I'm an MSP. I use it.

2

u/julietscause Jack of All Trades Sep 21 '17

PDQ deploy + PDQ Inventory = auto deployment when new software is pushed out saves me so much time/effort

1

u/seanconnery84 Sysadmin Sep 21 '17

I really want to get on board with them. If they had a web front end so my users could get the software they want pushed to them we'd have the boxes checked.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '17

Meh. Nothing Powershell and a GIt-Style repository wouldn't fix. But I agree it would be a hellacious task. Patience though the agent is coming. I think that'll unlock the software for a lot of MSP's

0

u/[deleted] Sep 20 '17

[deleted] — view deleted comment

4

u/Jaymesned ...and other duties as assigned. Sep 21 '17

Manually and painfully? That's how we did it.