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Questions to all DS (6.9 and earlier) only customers

  • 1.  Questions to all DS (6.9 and earlier) only customers

    Posted Jan 13, 2014 09:32 AM

    Hello all,

    I would really appreciate it if you would answer the following two questions:

    1.  Are you planning on moving to DS 7.x once DS 6.x becomes EOL (there is no timeframe for this yet), or will you go to a new product?

    2.  What systems management software do you use for your other lifecycle management requirements, and have you been able to integrate DS 6.x into it in some way?

    Thank you in advance,

    SK



  • 2.  RE: Questions to all DS (6.9 and earlier) only customers

    Posted Jan 13, 2014 10:02 AM

     

    1.  Are you planning on moving to DS 7.x once DS 6.x becomes EOL (there is no timeframe for this yet), or will you go to a new product?

    We are trying to find an alternative to SMP\DS 7.5 as it is not effective within our environment and has no consistent functional interface components that allow us to deploy the product to our support teams. When DS 6.x goes end of life we will continue to us ethe product until a real alternative can be found to replac ethe product.

     

    2.  What systems management software do you use for your other lifecycle management requirements, and have you been able to integrate DS 6.x into it in some way?

    We continue to use DS 6.x server for a life cycle platform, until we find an alternative !



  • 3.  RE: Questions to all DS (6.9 and earlier) only customers

    Posted Jan 13, 2014 10:29 AM

    1.  Are you planning on moving to DS 7.x once DS 6.x becomes EOL (there is no timeframe for this yet), or will you go to a new product?

    We are currently migrating Windows deployment (only OS we deployed using 6.9) from DS 6.9 to DS 7.5.  No plans to integrate any other OS deployments into the Symantec environment at this time.

    2.  What systems management software do you use for your other lifecycle management requirements, and have you been able to integrate DS 6.x into it in some way?

    We use Symantec ITMS v7.5, Bladelogic v8, and Oracle OpsCenter for lifecycle management.  DS 6.9 is not integrated with any of them.  No plans to integrate the various platform management systems.

     

     



  • 4.  RE: Questions to all DS (6.9 and earlier) only customers

    Trusted Advisor
    Posted Jan 13, 2014 03:26 PM

    SK - I know this thread is meant for 6.x customers, but it might be worth posing a similar questions to 7.x customers.  After struggling through our migration from 6.x to 7.1 in 2011, we were pretty happy with 7.1 SP2.  Unfortunately, the 7.5 upgrade broke things that were previously working great (mainly DA, but also having to rebuild every image to upgrade clients is a pain).

    Our next large rollout is just over a year away.  At this point, we may be looking elsewhere so we don't have to start at square one every time an upgrade comes out with no ETA on solutions from a seemingly overwhelmed 2nd tier support.  



  • 5.  RE: Questions to all DS (6.9 and earlier) only customers

    Posted Jan 13, 2014 03:29 PM

    1. Installing the latest available service pack for DS 6.9 allowed as to work with the OS systems like Windows 8. We are not planning to move to DS 7.5 in the foreseen future. We will continue to use DS.6.9 as long as it is possible. When it goes end of life we will estimate DS 7.5 and potential benefits of moving to it. From what I heard DS 7.5 still lacks the DS 6.9 functionalities that customers liked.

    2. We use ITMS 7.1. It is too early to see what the feedback of customers moved to 7.5 version is yet. Let us wait for 7.5 SP1 at least.



  • 6.  RE: Questions to all DS (6.9 and earlier) only customers

    Trusted Advisor
    Posted Jan 14, 2014 07:55 AM

     

     

    1. Are you planning on moving to DS 7.x once DS 6.x becomes EOL (there is no timeframe for this yet), or will you go to a new product?

    At the moment our strategy here is to stick with DS6.9 for PC provisioning. My understanding from recent roadshow feedback is that the Symantec vision for DS6.9 extends into 2019 and perhaps beyond

    The reason why we're sticking with DS6.9 is that the real-time aspect of it is very useful, scripting and logging very mature, it acts as a nother independent entrypoint into our client base, and it's easy to 'hook into'. All this makes DS6.9 more suitable to being used as a service rather than simply as an endpoint management product.

     

    What systems management software do you use for your other lifecycle management requirements, and have you been able to integrate DS 6.x into it in some way?

    We have some scripts which cross multiple databases for PC retirement and antivirus reporting type stuff. Our software database is linked through NS rather than DS (as NS is policy driven). Asset management is a pipe dream.

    Hope this helps.

     

     



  • 7.  RE: Questions to all DS (6.9 and earlier) only customers

    Posted Jan 15, 2014 09:13 AM

    1. Upgrading from 6.9? No way! At least not until something better comes along, and 7.5 is not it. Too many features missing that we need and have become accustomed to using. We had Client Management Suite since v5, upgraded to 5.5 to v6 to v6.5, but the only thing we really used it for was configuring the BIOS. That feature was removed in v7.1, so we quit using that altogether. Having Client Management Suite v7.1 and Asset Managment Suite v7.1 on the same server tied Licensing to Software Deployment, which was a nightmare for deploying software.

    Waking up the agent to deploy software was problematic, even in v7.1, so we never used it for that. We had a couple of tasks setup to run whenever they became relevant again, but they didn't always work properly.

    v6.9 doesn't have all these problems, so supported or not, I don't care. EOL or not, I don't care. As long as I can still run 6.9, and it can still deploy images and software, that's what I'll be using.

    2. We were using Asset Management Suite v6, and we made the mistake of upgrading to 7.1. That has fallen by the wayside.

    Symantec has taken easy to use and configure products (Client Management Suite and Asset Management Suite v6) and made them way too complicated and difficult to use. I'm not a developer, and have no desire to become one. Could I do it? Yes. Do I want to? No. I can do fairly complicated SQL queries, and that helped with v6 reporting and filtering computers. We're looking for something else.

     

    My two cents worth on webapps:

    Web-based apps in general just flat out suck. Most of them are unreliable and are poorly programmed. SaaS was a bust because of it. Now we call it the "Cloud", and suddenly it's alright? Java programming sucks. A lot of Java apps are tied to a specific version of Java, and a newer, more secure, version of Java seems to come out every other month, so you're stuck with security vulnerabilities because you're tied to a particular version of Java. I can't tell you how many apps broke in our Organization because Java got upgraded.

    Adobe Flash, SIlverlight? Same thing. Updates break apps because developers tend to write to those areas that are vulnerable, or they write to features that the vendor removes in the next version. Whether interntionally or not, it doesn't matter. It still breaks the app, and you're stuck either with a vulnerability or an older version.

    All of that doesn't take into account versions of browsers. Webapps tend to be dependant on certain features of certain browsers. It becomes a nightmare when one webapp requires v7 of IT and another requires v8. I know. Compatibility mode. Try explaining that to users that just want to run their apps.

    I long for the good ole days of Win32 apps that didn't break every time the OS was patched. I know. Some did, and some still do. But most Win32 apps I installed were programmed properly, using proper error checking, and the errors were usually meaningful to a Systems Engineer. Webapps? Forget it! You almost never get anything meaningful out of an error message. You rarely know if the error comes from the browser, Flash, Silverlight, Java, ActiveX, VBScript, JavaScript, .NET, or the OS.

    Dont get me wrong, there are a few decent webapps out there - just not that many.



  • 8.  RE: Questions to all DS (6.9 and earlier) only customers

    Posted Jan 15, 2014 02:40 PM

    Although we have a longlasting investment in DS 6.x (50000+ workstations, 10000+ servers) together with all the jobs, scripts and tooling we created around it, we are now looking forward.

    • The 'noise' about DS 6.9 going or not going EOL in the near future
      This noise has been going on for a couple of years now.
      To me it comes as a surprise in Ian's comment that maybe 'Symantec vision for DS6.9 extends into 2019 and perhaps beyond.' If only Symantec had done this earlier; a clear statement, a long term vision...
    • The delayed release of both DS 6.9 SP6 and DS 7.5
    • In the knowledge base there are lots of articles about DS 7.5; DS 6.9 SP6 is severely lacking on the normal documentation that one would expect.
    • ASDK 1.4 once was the programmers interface of choice; now the status for Symantec of ASDK 1.4 has changed to 'freeware' and no development is done for it causing it to be of unusable on Windows 2008 deployment server.
      Our tooling was based on ASDK.

     

    All this has caused our organisation to activeley look for alternatives. To put it in other words, Symantec, you lost it. DS6.9 will continue to be used until the followup tool is inplace.



  • 9.  RE: Questions to all DS (6.9 and earlier) only customers

    Posted Jan 16, 2014 10:34 PM

    1. We seem to be in the minority on this thread. We have moved from 6.9 to 7.1 and now to 7.5 with ease. The scripts and workarounds that we had to come up with for 6.9 (like HII) have come in handy with 7.5. Don't get me wrong, we still use 6.9 but that's basically to manage the Windows side of our 1000 dual-boot macs. Why? Since we also use Asset Management (and ServiceDesk) we like to keep the primary, "native" OS tied to the hardware that came with the machine. It helps avoid the issues where we have 2 machines with the same serial number. Things get very confused. Other than that, however, we can do everything we need to with 7.5; software deployment, imaging, remote control plus we get the benefits of reporting, workflows, assets, and now the ability to manage clients from an iPad. Its not perfect, and yes it needs to continue to be reworked to drop Silverlight and other activeX controls to allow us to use our Macs to work with it natively but its done well for us.

     

    2. We use CMS and Service and Asset Management along with Deployment all in one for lifecycle management of our client computers. Servers have never been included in this and probably never will be.



  • 10.  RE: Questions to all DS (6.9 and earlier) only customers

    Trusted Advisor
    Posted Jan 21, 2014 08:59 AM

    For what it's worth, even though I have my frustrations during my upgrade to 7.5, I've never seen the 7.x web app break with silverlight, java, or other updates that have come out.  Been on 7.x since 2011.

     



  • 11.  RE: Questions to all DS (6.9 and earlier) only customers

    Posted Jan 22, 2014 04:53 PM

    1.  Are you planning on moving to DS 7.x once DS 6.x becomes EOL (there is no timeframe for this yet), or will you go to a new product?

    New Product - 7.x is not a good product line in our opinion. 

    2.  What systems management software do you use for your other lifecycle management requirements, and have you been able to integrate DS 6.x into it in some way?

    SCCM - No integration. We are a college and we use DS for our imaging and management of our student computer labs. Staff management and imaging are done with SCCM. 



  • 12.  RE: Questions to all DS (6.9 and earlier) only customers

    Posted Jan 24, 2014 04:29 AM

    To clear up any confusion, Symantec has no plans at this point to EOL DS 6.9. Customers should feel confident in implementing it in their environments where it makes sense knowing that Symantec will be supporting it for several years to come.

    We just had a service pack release and are already planning for the next which should be available later this year. 

    I hope that helps.



  • 13.  RE: Questions to all DS (6.9 and earlier) only customers

    Posted Mar 04, 2014 07:02 PM

    we've still got a ds 6.9 sp5 server that won't be going anywhere any time soon.  we used ns 7.1 for a while, and patch was great but everything else was lacking, especially the web console.  i'll second the want for a real 32bit console.  sccm uses an actual exe and guess what - it just WORKS, doesn't rely on flaky IIS/asp/silverlight/java/etc etc etc and it looks consistent in every section.  i'll pile on and say that web apps suck and need to die a horrible death.  their original intentions (platform independance) were good but when you start requiring so many addons and other crap on the client side, it isn't platform independant anymore so you might as well just write a real win32 app and be done with it.  

    we have already moved from 7.1 to sccm2012 but we still have our DS 6.9 sp5 server for deploying images, pushing stuff real time (since sccm can't seem to do that right either), and most importantly, realtime status reporting of the computers (online or off), job status, and also the ability to retry failed jobs or continue multi-step jobs... i posted ideas about that on connect ages ago when we first switched to 7.1 and they got lots of up-votes and a few me-too comments but doesn't look like anything came of them.

    another post here talks about the fact that we don't want to be developers to use this product.  the fact that i had to write my own scripts and other stuff just to be able to do the same thing that was like 3 clicks in DS... no thanks.