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  • 1.  Deploying to thin clients with DS 6.9 - ideas...

    Posted Feb 26, 2011 08:12 AM

    Hello all,

    I am a relative newcomer to Altiris. I've installed a 6.9 SP4 Deployment Solution before, but with little time to tune it. I have another install to do, and want to fully understand it and avoid rolling it out with defaults everywhere!

    I will be deploying to XP Embedded thin clients (HP) with the Altiris agent already installed. I have pre-configured a WinPE PXE boot disk, and now want to go about the process of image creation and deployment. Things I want to discuss/ask about are:

    • Generating SIDs for clients. The thin clients will be domain joined so I would be interested to hear preferred options for preparing an image for cloning - sysprep isn't an option for XP Embedded is it?
    • Domain joining clients after image deployment. I was thinking of running a simple batch file after deployment. Any other ways? 
    • Image creation. Advantages and disadvantages of using RDeploy or ImageX with setup. I have read that ImageX is preferred for WinPE, why so?
    • Multicast deployment. How best to set it up! I know that Altiris uses a master client to unicast to, which then multicasts on the LAN to other clients. However, I am unsure of how to go about setting that up. Is is set up by default?
    • Deployment Console discovering clients. How are clients recognised by the Deployment Console? Does the client agent broadcast for a Deployment Console, or does the Deployment Console look for agents (if so, how?)

    I'm sure there's lots more I could ask, but that'll do for now. I am happy for dumbed down explanations, but I won't be relying on being spoon fed. I will take suggestions and test based on them.



  • 2.  RE: Deploying to thin clients with DS 6.9 - ideas...
    Best Answer

    Trusted Advisor
    Posted Feb 27, 2011 05:24 PM

    Hi, that's a lot of questions -sure you got them all in?? ;-)

    For you XPe questions, here are some links which will help,

    1. Creating a Run-Time Image for Cloning
    2. Configuring a Windows XP Embedded Thin Client
    3. FBRESEAL Commands
    In summary, the SID change will happen on the first system boot after sealing and the seal can be configured to maintain domain settings.
     
    For the best imaging program -not sure there is one. RDeploy is certainly now being de-emphasised as Ghost is the brand product in this area. ImageX is fine I'm sure, but apparently needs to have the disk partitions configured prior to use (diskpart scripts). People simply have their favorites. Mine is still Rdeploy -early tests gave smaller images when compared with ImageX. I'll be moving to Ghost over this year however.
     
    For the mulitcast settings, you'll need to review your multicast threshold. This is the trigger point when imaging on-mass with DS which will force a mulitcast session to begin. This is set in the Deployment Server Configuration utlility, located on the start menu. You'll find the setting under Options -> Disk Imaging,
     
     
     
    Deployment Server doesn't have a broadcast scanner for client discovery, and has a remote agent installer app to handle the agent push.
     
    For more details check out the admin guide,

    And of course there is a great Quick Start course here on Connect... ;-)

    Kind Regards,
    Ian./



  • 3.  RE: Deploying to thin clients with DS 6.9 - ideas...

    Posted Feb 27, 2011 05:52 PM

    Hi Ian,

    Just about all of my questions, yes!

    I will have a look at the XPe cloning links in the morning when I'm back in work, thank you.

    I think I'll stick to using RDeploy for now, as I have also read that it produces smaller images. I have also seen that ImageX doesn't support multicasting with Altiris. Also, when creating I assume I would be checking the box to disable booting to production to maintain the prepared image (after sealing)?

    Regarding the multicast threshold - so with the default value of 4 a multicast deployment will only initiate once more than four clients are selected in an imaging job? Does it then automatically select one of those clients to use as the master?

    I will continue to refer to the admin guide, although there are a few areas where explanation are sparse!

    Thanks again Ian. I am determined to understand this fully before rolling it out.



  • 4.  RE: Deploying to thin clients with DS 6.9 - ideas...

    Trusted Advisor
    Posted Feb 28, 2011 04:03 AM

    Ah yes. Last night I did omit that important caveat to your 4th question. Multicasting is only natively supported in DS 6.9 using RDeploy.

    It's possible to multicast using Ghost with DS6.9, but it's a bit of a fiddle,
    31153- Howto distribute Ghost Images via multicast