Hi
when it comes DSC Pull mode, every now and then I read the advice to use the DSC node’s computer account GUIDs as values for their LCM ConfigurationID property.
Can you guys tell me why this is good practice? In my eyes it’s just an additional dependency that’s not worth the whatever benefit. Or am I a blockhead?
Thanks in advance
FPS
Well, I can’t speak generally to you being a blockhead or not.
The advice is because you have to get a GUID from someplace, and then keep track of them all. Using the computer account GUID is a shortcut, because AD is going to keep track of that for you. So you won’t have to have another list of “Computer=GUID” anywhere. But it does assume you’re in an AD environment, and DSC is otherwise not dependent on AD. This certainly isn’t the only way to do things - but it’s one way, and some people have been happy with it.
But this kind of all goes away in v5 anyway. Configurations don’t use GUIDs anymore, they use a human-readable name, so you have a lot more flexibility and probably an easier time keeping track.
Thanks.
Clever though it seems to re-use already existing GUIDs for DSC purposes, I don’t like that approach. From my perspective it’s a sort of killing two birds with one shot and such approaches tend to bring undesirable side-effects, sooner or later. Once bitten, twice shy, you know 
Regarding the keeping-track-challenge I consider an additional CMDB field for the Computer Configuration Item class the best option to manage the configuration id/name to DSC node associations, at least in the abstract.
Yeah, and that’s another approach some have taken. Others use a custom field in AD. Others use an Excel spreadsheet. I think moving away from GUIDs - especially with the advent of partial configurations - is the best solution.