Primed for Automation
How does one make the untenable tenable? Jason Slagle, President of CNWR, Inc., and his team deployed workstations with Windows Deployment Services. And for a time, it worked, but not without a lot effort.
“ It worked, it could deploy, right? However, it took a long time and a lot of care and feeding to make that [WDS] a tenable solution,” Slagle said.
It was in the threads of the MSP Geek Discord that Slagle first came across ImmyBot.
“Everyone was kind of ranting and raving about this new tool that everyone was using to do workstation deployments,” Slagle said. “I actually resisted for a long time, going it can’t be that much time savings. And then at some point or another, we tried it and we never really went back.”
Kicking ImmyBot’s Tires
CNWR started using ImmyBot to onboard new computers, but that was only the beginning. Migrations? Maintenance? CNWR learned more advanced ways to incorporate ImmyBot into their workflow for boosted efficiency.
“One of the big advantages that ImmyBot has is the fact that it’s desired state config, right? So I model the way I want the system to be and it gets it there,” Slagle said. “You can do policy control. If it drifts, it’s gonna pull it back in.”
An Automated Approach
Incorporating ImmyBot flipped a switch for Slagle and his team. Gone were the days of laboring in manual tedium and spending hours white-gloving every little change. If it could be automated, they would automate it.
There was a time about three weeks ago when I walked into our library where we build, and one of the techs had 15 laptops all out sitting on a bench, all running ImmyBot deployments,” Slagle said. “And so we were able to simultaneously deploy those workstations in well less than an hour each.”
Takeaways
Utilzing ImmyBot allowed the techs at CNWR, Inc to:
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Efficiently onboard new computers faster than their old method.
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Push beyond onboarding by utilizing ImmyBot to handle Azure migrations and keep workstations in line based on a desired state configuration.
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Adopt an automation first mindset in the way they approach their business.
About the Guest
Jason Slagle
President, CNWR, Inc.
A veteran of the IT services industry, Jason Slagle currently serves as the President of CNWR, Inc., an Ohio-based MSP.
