Deployment Solution

Hi

Does anyone have any info on whether and how GSS 3 (and 2.5) and DS 7.5/7.6 manages to deal with multicasting across different Vlans, and switches and routers that don't deal with multicasting properly?

Rdeploy used to be quite clever in that it would automatically check for this issue and then look for clients it could unicast to and then use these to multicast to those computers within the releavnt Lan, subnet etc. i.e. it would set up a multicast proxies when necessary.

I don't think Ghost, which is now the standard imaging engine has this capability? Or does it? Can it use Multicast proxies and if so how? I'm struggling to find much information though I expect it is available somewhere...

Anyone got any pointers or ...?

Thanks in advance

Steve

Hi smassie,

See if this article helps you: http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO99980

Regards

Hi Rafael,

Thanks - yes we know  how to configure the SMP for multicasting, but the issue is multicasting across different Vlans, through routers, and complex network environments. Network devices often do not support multicast packets effectively or require complex configuration to support multicasting. Network Admins often don't know how to do the relevant configuration or don't like to enable this for various reasons. 

The Rdeploy imaging engine was pretty clever in these environments. If it found it couldn't multicast to machines it would search for a machine in the relevant network segment it could unicast to and then set this up as a multicast proxy for all other machines in that network segment it needed to multicast to.

Now the ghost imaging engine is the standard for GSS and Deployment Solution, (and has in effect replaced RDeploy) and I don't believe it has the same capabilities, but am asking if anyone knows more and can advise how to get round the problems in imaging using multicast across complex network environments using Ghost. Can you set up a multicast proxy? Would a 'Site Server' with task and deployment services installed in the relevant network segments be the recommended solution?

Oh right,

I guess Ghost does not have that function, but yes, site server with NBS services is the recommended way to do that in Altiris. 

The images you have on NS will be replicated to the NBS configured to receive it, and the DHCP/IP Helper will have to be configured in that subnet in order for machines to receive pxe packets. And as longsas the agents have received policies regards bandwidth download restriction, you won't have to worry about network.

Regards.

Hi Steve,

If the Vlans are in different geographical locations, I would break down the query in two; as multicasting would not work well(or work at all) over long distances.

- Image across Vlans (I would suggest deploying a NBS site server for each geo-loaction/branch)

- Multicasting:

the environment needs to allow for multicasting. In DS 7.5/7.6 there is no gostcast server, DS force the multicasting when the threshold +1 is met. If the environment (switches/routers) do not allow for multicasting, it will default on unicasting or return an error.

You can try forcing ghost to multicast by using the switch -MP as from article below:

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/blogs/what-are-new-ghost-switches-available-ds-71-sp1

I hope this helps.

Regards,

Mauro