I wrote this words to answering in another bog entry, but I think these simple facts are so significant that they can be a stand alone blog entry if some product manager or devellopper read this blog.
Just for fun, some DS7.1 integration way :
- You have a wonderful tool to create PXE Preboot (Bootwiz). This tool include an agent (Dagent for DS6.9) and a way to include OEM (Dell, HP,...) tools. When you want to change the Agent (PECTAgent for DS7.1), the Symantec way is to drop the original agent and add the new agent through the OEM function. It's ... dirty ???
-You have a tool to replace tokens in your Tasks scripts. You want to implement a replacement token tool for unattend and sysprep files. Extanding the usage of Tokens is not a good idea, it's better to creat a new token replacement process without any user control (changing the %TOKEN% to @TOKEN) and put this tool directly on a dll on the PECTAgent. It's ... stupid
-You deploy a new Agent (PECTAgent) without any Inventory ability. It's shure, no one need to now the computer product name when you deploy a computer. It's ... idiot ???
-You deploy a new OS with the wonderful SOI tool on DS7.1. The SMP and deployment agent installation is made through the SetupComplete.cmd method. OK. So you copy the entire sources from the task server ? NO, it's too simple. You prefer deploying the Bootstrap tool and download the sources directly from the SMP server (23Mb accross a WAN...). I prefer no to talk about the DSPluginIstall.exe ans his Registry Tweaks, it's just ... funny ???
-Last but not least : Bare metal Deployment. Deploying software directly after deploying an operating system is too simple. You have to create a server job; deploying a software is not possible on a computer without the Software Management Agent. The only thing that the Software management agent have to do is : Talking to the SMP server that the computer use a license. Create a tool to populate the license table at the begining of the job would be too easy for customers; It's ... bullshit
DS7.1sp1 just work. For me it's not a real product today, just some bricks putting by some devellopers without any management. But it works. You can deploy Operating Systems through a web console. But if this product still live in 2014, i hope that every point i've wrote will be replaced by real products.
Just for your knowledge : I've deployed more than 5 client on DS7.1SP1 (and more than Thousand clients on DS6.9 and NS6.x/7.x) and it's not over. I expect a lot of change for the SP2 (or 7.2....)
Please Symantec, add some quality....(The last one : DS7.1SP1a doesn't include Task Serve Handler -aka PXE Tools- for x86 servers, see http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH167515 ...)
Regards
Laurent