Deployment Server Now Does Hardware Independent Imaging!
Updated: 07 Jul 2009 | 13 comments
I recently installed Deployment Server 6.9 SP1 Beta and noticed that the Distribute Disk Image task now has the option "Use DeployAnywhere hardware independent imaging"!
With this option enabled, I can deploy a single image to computers with different mass storage devices without even preparing it with sysprep beforehand. No more mess-work!!
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Any idea when SP1 is slated
Any idea when SP1 is slated to become "Non Beta"? I'd realy like to utilize this feature as soon as possible. Especially with the new Dell Lattitude E series, becoming such a nightmare with our HII.
-Kev
Dell E Series
What issues are you runing into with the laptops? We are going to get them in soon also.
The new SATA controllers.
The new SATA controllers. Since we never disable SATA, in order to gain the performance benefits. The chipset drivers, even through injection are driving me crazy.
I'm going to end up re-building the base image of one of these instead, with NLite preloading all the SATA controller drivers in place of F6.
-Kev
Great news!
This could be a really cool feature! Wonder what happens to HIIS now?
Robert Lundsten
Asterio
http://www.asterio.se
Robert Lundsten
Consultant / Founder : Asterio
Homepage | http://www.asterio.se
Blog | http://www.asterio.se/blogg
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It depends
I'd be interested to see exactly what this feature will include. HIIS has some tools that I know that simple checkbox can't cover. Including building hardware classes and automatically collecting driver patches and building hardware classes.
That's not to say that SP1 won't include a huge list of other jobs and tasks to do those things also. We'll just have to wait until the final release of SP1 before we know for sure.
- Matt
Technology transfer from GSS?
I think this is a straight technology transfer from Ghost Solution Suite.
If so, there might be some limitations to using it -such as driver support being oddly limited to NIC and Masstorage.
From looking around at the comments on Ghost's DeployAnwhere, it doesn't look like complete product yet, so there is still space for the likes of CondorMan and Altrinsics.
Kind Regards,
Ian./
Ian Atkin, Senior Developer for the ICT Support Team, Oxford University, UK
Connect Etiquette: "Mark as Solution" those posts which resolve your problem, and give a thumbs up to useful comments, articles and downloads&
Actually...
Actually, HIIS is over-complicated. I never understood why they feel like you need to create their hardware "classes". What matters is what devices are on the computer, not what "class" the computer is.
With a little coding, they could replace HIIS and HII Tools with a simple checkbox. I hope they do. But in the meantime, you can count on me taking advantage of this feature to make HII Tools implementation as simple and headache-free as possible.
What about...
...Universal Imaging Utility? It's from Binary Research, I think they're the guys who invented Ghost and it creates a single image.
Universal Imaging Utility
UIU has a very extensive set drivers. However, it adds 2GB to your image size, which slows down image deployment. Also, you need to re-create your image any time you want to update the supported hardware.
DeployAnywhere does not increase your image size and since it installs drivers after image deployment, you do not need to recreate your image to support new devices.
It is exactly what we were expecting from few years...
I got a few customer in production for now. Using "DeployAnyWhere" to inject latest HP laptop, with success. No need to rebuild the source image. Great! I wonder if the WinPE preboot should use this driver repository also? Because, it seems not. So you have to update the preboot with the additionnal drivers in the same time we have to add in the DeployAnyWhere repository. Am I wrong?
~Pascal @ Bechtle~ Do you speak French? Et utilisez Altiris: venez nous rejoindre sur le GUASF&l
Can anyone comment whether
Can anyone comment whether DeployAnywhere can be used to install the other device drivers too? Such as video, audio, etc.? To fully replace a regular HII process, it needs to do these things, correct?
-Geo
Can we deploy using linux automation?
Will we be able to do this using linux automation?
Doesn't install all devices
From what I gather, it is still only able to replace the HAL, NIC drivers and Mass Storage drivers.
They are hoping to have the ability to inject other device drivers in a future release.
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