Windows 7 migrations consume a lot of bandwidth and can take hours to push the image to each machine.
I recently oversaw and implemented Amkor Technology's Windows 7 Migration of more than 500 machines in less than two months. One of the problems that we had to overcome was to enable imaging times under a half an hour while ten machines were being imaged simultaneously (using a Fat Image). This would enable us to have the rest of the day to install unique user applications, migrate data and settings while being able to return the machine to the user no later than the end of the work day.
Setting up an isolated LAN environment enabled us to push a 13GB Image to all ten machines simultaneously in less than ten minutes each from start to finish. I would like to share with you what needs to be done in order to get Image times like so.
A good setup would start with having a 24 port Gigabit Switch with two uplinks to the WAN. The Switch will also need to serve the purpose of being a DHCP Server for the Altiris PXE Boot to work. The DHCP could easily be addressed by using a simple at home Router connected to the Switch. Once this has been connected, run your CAT cables from the Switch to your "Workbench" where you will be migrating machines and the easy part is behind you.
The Altiris DS Server can be set up on an ordinary desktop machine and does not require an actual server to do so. Good practice is to not allow the server to be a bottleneck in your setup which can be simple to do. What I had done is used a standard dual core desktop with 8GB of RAM and two dual port PCI GB NIC cards which are pretty cheap to come by (Maybe overboard). For the hard disk I had used nothing but a 40GB Intel Solid State Drive to avoid the Hard Drive being the bottleneck of the setup. I installed Windows Server 2008 for the OS, and Altiris Deployment Solution 6.9 with PXE Server afterwords. I had used the standard Install of Altiris DS with MSDE (Auto configures this for you) for the Database to cancel out the need for a SQL Server. In my situation, it was imperative to back up the data on their old hard disks for a roll back plan. For this, I had installed two 2TB hard disks as well for a total of 4TB in the new DS server for storing the old images.
Once the LAN and Altiris Server were set up, I had exported my original Altiris DS Jobs as well as my software packages to the SSD on the new LAN Altiris DS. After migrating the software packages and image, I had to change minor paths in the jobs themselves to point to their new location on the hard disk. Once done, this enabled me to Image, Deploy Software, and back up the users old hard disks all from the new server. Multicasting had helped increase the Imaging times as well as some minor changes to the dual port GB NIC cards I had used such as increasing the buffer sizes and packet sizes. Other than that, with this setup - you can image a hundred machines a day with ease!
If you have any further questions or comments regarding this setup, feel free to contact me at BFull@amkor.com and I would be more than happy to help you with your migrations as well!