Windows 7 / Getting Started

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State Migration Point

SMPs store user data as it is migrated from one instance of Windows to another. Typically, SMPs are used only for replace scenarios in which new physical hardware replaces the user's old system. Because the new system may not physically be online, the SMP provides a transient location on the network to store user data temporarily. From the SMP, the data is then copied to the user's new system. Actual user state data and settings are captured using the built-in functionality of USMT behind the scenes and is SMP-aware.

Another common scenario for using SMPs is a refresh scenario in which a third party, full-disk encryption product is in use or the current hard-drive must be reformatted. The typical path for the refresh scenario is to use the in-place hard-link capabilities of USMT 4.0. This greatly speeds the refresh of a system because the user's data never must be physically moved. However, with third-party, full-disk encryption products in the mix, the current data on the hard-drive is inaccessible during the initial WinPE phase of the build process, so the drive must be reformatted, which in turn wipes out the data stored locally by USMT. Thus, the only option is to move the user's data to a transient location like the SMP.

CAUTION:
Unlike BitLocker, most third-party, disk-encryption products cannot be paused from within OSD and often require manual PIN or key entry. This is a challenge that Microsoft is not responsible for and cannot hope to address. If you find yourself using a third-party, fulldisk encryption product, you can either use an SMP as stated in this section, treat the system as a bare-metal or new system, or contact the vendor for possible solutions they may have.

At its heart, the SMP is just a shared folder on a site system. Here are its advantages:

• ConfigMgr directly manages the SMP, so it is automatically locatable by the OSD process.
• Stored data is deleted automatically after a specified number of days.
• Data is securely and separately stored in case something goes wrong during the build process.

SMP Installation

To install an SMP, follow these steps; SMPs, like other client-centric roles, cannot be installed on the CAS because the CAS does not directly manage clients:

1. Navigate to Administration → Overview → Site Configuration. Select Servers and Site System Roles . All currently installed site systems display on the right.
2. To use an existing site server, right-click it and choose Add Site System Roles to launch the Add Site System Roles Wizard.
   If using a remote system that is not currently a site system, you must first make the system a site system by right-clicking the Servers and Site System Roles node in the navigation tree and selecting Create Site System Server.
3. On the System Role Selection page of the Add Site System Roles Wizard or the Create Site System Server Wizard, select State migration point. This adds two subpages to the wizard: State Migration Point and Boundary Groups.
4. The State Migration Point pagehas these choices:
   • Folder details: This list box allows you to designate specific folders on the site system to use. You must specify a specific local path, the maximum number of clients to serve, and minimum amount of free space on the drive hosting the folder to consider the SMP healthy.
     The paths specified are local paths relative to the system hosting the DP. If you specify multiple paths, each is tried in the order listed for state capture operations; paths over the maximum number of clients or below the minimum amount of free space available are skipped.
   • Deletion Policy: In this section, you specify how long to save user state on a state migration point after it is restored.
   • Enable Restore-Only Mode: This mode prevents this state migration point from accepting new user state, but allows retrieval of previously saved user state data. This is useful when retiring a server or preparing it for maintenance.
5. The Boundary Groups page presents these choices:
   • Boundary groups: In this list box, you either select or create the boundary groups associated with this SMP. Selecting a boundary group here makes this SMP preferred for clients that fall within that boundary group. See the section on "SMP Selection" for details on how clients choose between multiple SMPs if they exist in an environment.
   • Allow fallback source location: If checked for an SMP, the SMP will service clients outside of its defined boundary groups if the client cannot find a preferred SMP.

TIP:
The relationship between boundaries and SMPs is identical to the relationship between boundaries and DPs.

After completing the wizard, ConfigMgr installs the SMP with the desired parameters. To change any of these settings after the SMP is installed, navigate to the Server and Site Systems node under Overview → Site Configuration in the Administration workspace's navigation tree, select the site server from the list on the right, right-click State Migration Point in the Detail pane at the bottom, and select Properties.

To verify correct installation and operation of the SMP, check smpMSI.log and smpmgr.log respectively in the server's log files folder for errors. Smpmgr.log has three lines similar to the following if the SMP is installed and functioning correctly:

Call to HttpSendRequestSync succeeded for port 80 with status code 200, text: OK
Health check operation succeeded
Completed availability check on local machine

SMP Selection

Similar to DPs, you can add multiple SMPs to a site or site hierarchy to provide redundancy and some load balancing. SMPs are chosen by clients systems wanting to capture user state in the same order as DPs:

1. SMPs defined in their boundary group and in their subnet
2. SMPs defined in their boundary group and in alternative subnets
3. All other SMPs

Within each of these groups, there is no defined order for the SMPs but some randomization does occur to create a pseudo load balancing.