What’s New in Application Deployment?

The label Application Deployment describes the new approach being taken in Configuration Manager 2012 for deploying content. Software Distribution, as it has been historically known, has not been removed from the product; it is still present in the console and represented by the Packages node of Application Management. Also note the Applications node, which is where configurations using the new approach are centered. This is shown in Figure

 

Classic Software Distribution works very much the same way as it did in Configuration Manager 2007. Classic Software Distribution might be seen as available only to facilitate migration and to allow administrators the ability to deploy content the old way while learning the new approach in Configuration Manager 2012. Classic Software Distribution actually remains very useful in certain scenarios. Remember that the new Application Deployment approach is designed to deploy applications, and it offers very rich configurations.

The Application Deployment model, however, may not be a good option for every potential deployment. Consider a scenario where an administrator simply needs to deploy a command line to systems. The Application Deployment model isn’t well suited for such a task, and instead administrators should use either classic Software Distribution or a task sequence. Classic software packages can be migrated to the new application model with the Package Conversion Manager discussed in Chapter 3, “Migrating to Configuration Manager 2012.”

 With proper deference given to classic Software Distribution, it is much the same as it was in Configuration Manager 2007, so the discussion in this chapter will be solely focused on the new Application Deployment features. 

If you need a full review of the classic Software Distribution model, an excellent discussion is available in the book Mastering Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R2 (Sybex, 2009).
Note the difference in terminology, as shown in Table 

Application Deployment	Classic Software Distribution
Application	Package
Deployment type	Program
Deployment	Advertisement