Once you've completed your installation and basic configuration of the SCEP role on your SCCM 2012 server, it's time to start thinking about how you're going to roll the SCEP client out to your user base. Microsoft has done a fantastic job of making SCEP client deployment a quick and easy task.

Maybe, it's even a bit too easy in some regards. In the most basic term, an anti-virus client is software that will be installed on every Windows-based computer in your environment and will have a direct effect on the performance of every piece of software that is allowed to run on your PCs. Not to mention, it is the last line of defense in your anti-malware strategy.

So it's always best practice to do a little preparation and planning before actually pulling the trigger on your roll out.

Once the installation and configuration of your SCEP infrastructure is completed and you've gone through the deployment planning process, you'll be ready for the main event in a SCEP implementation, that is, client deployment.

This chapter contains recipes that will help to make this task considerably easier. You'll be learning how to initiate a client deployment in a phased and controlled manner, as well as how to monitor the progression of your deployment. You'll also be learning how to deploy the client manually without the use of SCCM and what to do if your newly installed SCEP clients have any issues receiving updates or communicating their status back to the SCCM environment.