Welcome to guide on step by step guide for SCCM secondary site installation. In this guide we will understand the concept of secondary sites. Also we will see how to install SCCM secondary site step by step. This guide is a part of my SCCM 2012 R2 step by step guides. Secondary sites are useful when you have remote site and you want to transfer content and client data across low-bandwidth networks. If you have got sufficient bandwidth, you can always have a distribution point for every site. When you deploy Secondary site setup also installs a management point and distribution point on secondary site server.

Concept of Secondary Sites

When you deploy configuration manager, the top site in a hierarchy will be either a primary site or a

CAS. Many organizations choose to use a single primary site and later add one or more secondary sites.

Secondary sites can help control bandwidth utilization by managing the flow of client information sent

up the hierarchy. When you deploy secondary site you do not require a local administrator for the site.

This is because you manage secondary site from CAS or primary site.

In short install the secondary site if any one of the below points are true.

• The remote site location has more than 500 clients. • You need to compress traffic going to the site. • Need to control the upward flowing traffic. • Local management point need. • Require a local software update point.

Prerequisites for installation of Secondary site

FEATURES - On the secondary site server install the following features – .Net 3.5 Framework, .Net 4 Framework, Remote Differential Compression, BITS.

PERMISSIONS On the secondary site server add Primary Site server computer account to local Administrator group. Provide Secondary Site server computer account full Permissions on System Management container in AD.

PORTS Ensure the following ports are opened between the site server and remote secondary site server. TCP Port 4022 (SQL), TCP port 1433 (SQL), TCP port 135 (WMI/RPC), TCP port 445 (SMB).

SQL Secondary sites automatically install SQL Server Express during site installation if a local instance of SQL Server is not available. Since the SQL express edition is free, go with this option.

Before you install SCCM secondary site, you could make use of prerequisite check tool. This tool checks for errors/warnings/missing prerequisites. On the primary site server, mount the configuration manager media. Run the command prompt as administrator. Change the path to Mounted Drive:\SMSSETUP\BIN\X64 folder. Run the below command

prereqchk.exe /SEC secondary_server_name_FQDN /INSTALLSQLEXPRESS /Ssbport 4022 /Sqlport 1433

Wait for the prerequisite check to complete. If you don’t see any warnings or errors, you are good to proceed.

SCCM Secondary Site Installation Let’s proceed with installing SCCM secondary site. In the configuration manager console navigate to Administration > Overview > Site Configuration. Click Sites and on top ribbon click Create Secondary Site.

Specify site code, site server name and site name. The site code should be unique. Click Next.

For installation source files, choose Copy installation source files over the network from the parent site server. Click Next.

Choose the default option (install SQL server express on the secondary site computer). Click Next.

Click Next.

Select the drive for primary content library and package share location. Click Next.

Content validation can be enabled later. Therefore I will skip this and click Next.

Boundary groups can be associated later. Click Next.

Finally click Close.

Click secondary site and then click Show install status. You see a detailed installation status for secondary site. In the configuration manager console the state is seen as Pending.

Verify SCCM Secondary Site Installation To verify the installation of secondary sites, open and check the log files mentioned below.

On Primary site server, open Hman.log and ConfigMgrPrereq.log.

On Secondary site server, open Configmgrsetup.log and SiteComp.log.

Click show install status, we see the secondary site server installation is completed.

Refresh the configuration manager console. We see the state changed to Active. The secondary site installation is successful.