Client Management Suite

Hello,

We have approximately 6,000 Altiris managed Dell (various models) Windows (XP and 7) PC's. We are one year into using Altiris. I have little to know experience with SQL. The Dell PC's have OMCI installed and I am wondering if an Altiris filter (or report?) could be used to identify;

1. Firmware rev of PC.

2. If certain BIOS settings are configured with specific parameters (ie- WOL, boot order).

?

Item 2 would be important because depending on the results of that check we could implement an Altiris Police / managed software delivery that would configure bios using a CCTK generated multi-platform bios exe.

Thank you!

One of the built in reports (Inventory > Hardware) should show the rev of the BIOS.

Do you have v7.0 with Dell Client Management Suite?

You could maybe just develop a CCTK package to apply the settings you want and apply it to all relevant PCs, it shouldn't matter if some are correct already.

Thanks for your reply!

For whatever reason the plug was pulled on Dell integration with Altiris. We are at v7.1.

I did consider your 2nd suggestion, and did test it. However;

-CCTK can't set the password if;

• The system BIOS password is not set AND
• The BIOS exe that is being delivered is set to what the password SHOULD be.

So we have a managed software delivery / policy that runs 2 BIOS exe's sequentially;

• The first has no PW provided.
• The second has PW provided.

Both set the same options (WOL, Boot Order, Low Power mode disable, BIOS PW).

This seems like as brute force method which was why I was looking for a "cleaner" method.

I take it the Tasks in your Policy have the Advanced option to Continue on failure set.

While it feels neater to target based on inventory the inventory is never fully up to date so, as long as each task will fail cleanly and there's no risk of BIOS corruption, your approach is a good one.

One project I always wanted to try was to install a clean Dell Client Manager with NS 7.0 and use the Software Resource Replicator to import the Dell tools and policies into 7.1:

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH166711

Thank you.

I wonder if SQL in Altiris can "talk" to OMCI to retrieve BIOS settings....

I don't know much about OMCI, I'm afraid, but, if it's a SQL database you can add the OMCI SQL Server to the SQL Server used to host Altiris using the add linked server command. Then you can create SQL Queries with Joins to both databases for Filters and reports.

Thank you. "OMCI interfaces with leading enterprise management consoles that support industry standards. This approach helps to ensure that Dell systems can be managed by a broad array of existing enterprise management tools. OMCI also interfaces with Dell OpenManage products such as IT Assistant and OpenManage Client Connector. Finally, tight integration with Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) allows customers to take advantage of the rich scripting capabilities for collecting information and customizing system settings. OMCI is provided at no additional charge to Dell customers." http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/solutions/omci_info.pdf