Deployment Solution

We have 10 DS's. When we make a configuration on jobs, we import the jobs folder to the rest of thes servers. The issue is that all the jobs that the clients have completed disapears after the job import(Guid?). Ofcourse our job folder contains all of our production jobs.  It would be a total pain if we have to import each jobs separately. Is there a way we can import the new job folders but not lose the install history?

Whenever you delete a job, you delete the history as well.  You can still see some job history if you right click on a PC and click History, however.

If you are running NS, you can replicate your jobs across your infrastructure via the Console (Under the tasks tab), under "Deploy and Migrate" --> "Deployment" ---> Deployment Server Replication.

Hope this helps.

The NS replication was brought up during a user group session hosted at Symantec last week (Midwest Users Group).  As I don't have more than one DS, replication of jobs is a moot point for me, I just recalled that some others brought up that exact scenario and that was the answer that was given. 

I cant seem to find the Deploy and Migrate in the menu? I am using NS 6.0 SP3.

It should be under the tasks tab of the console.

Hmm, thats not available in my console for some reason.

You may want to give Altiris a call on that one.  It's almost as if NS does not know about DS.

I found the solution here:

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/deployment-tab-ns

Had to install the MS patch for MSI installer errors and then the Deployment Solution was able to install.

The reason it does not show the DS information is because he needs to install one more componet into his NS.  He needs to install the Deployment Solution Integrated module into the NS.  This can be accomplished by going into the NS solution center and selecting the Deployment Solution for installation.  Then he will have all the options for Deployment Solution, like being able to replicate jobs.

Has anyone got this working?

I had always assumed that the history loss was inevitable! The histories are useful in deep job hierachies where you locate jobs by looking at the last computer you remember running it on!!), so if this is possible  i'd really like to know.

I've tried in the past using the NS replication task "DS Task Import Utility" to replicate tasks.bin but it always lost the job history when overwriting the jobs. This didn't surprise me though as its just running the standard aximport.exe utility, so I didn't look any further in solving this problem. As I wanted to do some SQL cleanups too, I then resorted to running my own batch files to import and then do my cleanups.

Although there is a purge duplicates policy (which appears to want to preserve histories) in the Deployment Server maintenance folder, the import doesn't produce duplicates i'm not sure what this is for. A KB search on this comes up with zilch.

So, if anyone does have job replication going without losing job history. If you've got it working, and understand it, then all the better ;-)

Kind Regards,
Ian./

Hi Timanator,

Here is an official response from Altiris on this one.

"The issue regarding job history has already been reported to development. Please find the two corresponding feature requests (28043, 26014) below.  .....   Unfortunately there is no solution available yet and I am not sure if there will be a solution available for it anytime soon as with the introduction of CMS 7 and DS 7 respectively as both products share the same database,  and therefore all replication features for NS can be used for DS as well.

Using DS Library Replication from NS 6.0 won't help either as it is also using the same tool (aximport) to import the jobs. For additional information regarding DS Library Replication please have a look at the KB articles below.

Feature Requests:
FEATURE REQUEST: Aximport causes history of previous jobs to be removed
https://kb.altiris.com/article.asp?article=28043&p=1

FEATURE REQUEST: Option and/or ability to keep the history of jobs when using the AXImport utility
https://kb.altiris.com/article.asp?article=26014&p=1

DS Library Replication:
How to enable DS Library Replication using Package Servers?
https://kb.altiris.com/article.asp?article=41119&p=1

Job Replication between DS computers
https://kb.altiris.com/article.asp?article=27336&p=1"

So the Deployment Solution replication component in the NS console won't help. I've just posted an article about preserving job history when replicating jobs,

http://www.symantec.com/connect/articles/maintaining-history-deployment-server-job-replication

It uses a bit of SQL around the aximport to restore the history. In my setup use a lot more SQL to ensure jobs and folders are cleaned up properly on replication (by default if you delete jobs and folders on the master server, they won't be deleted on the down-level servers with aximport unless you don't care about preserving job history). I didn't put all that in though as I thought that would confuse the matter if I presented the lot in one article.

Kind Regards,
Ian./





 

Thanks Ian

I have read your article on the subject of job history replication(Mindblowing and detailed), might be something I will just have to deal with once we migrate to 7.

 Hi Timanator,

Hey -I was nearly very excited when I saw the rumors that NS could handle this issue. Creating custom scripts is all well and good but they're a devil to develop and maintain.

Altiris is designed with the premise of  just getting the job done, but sometimes to get the job done well you've got to put in the dev time. I wish I had time to package this stuff up nicely so that other users could just click an installshield screen to say "OK" for preserving job history etc, but there just isn't enough hours in the day.

Best of luck with NS7 -I'm taking the slow road on this one, and will  be playing catch up on this next year. On the plus side,  by then  there will be a wealth of articles and tips for it on Connect so I'm confident I'll be able to get cracking quickly when I do get around to it!

Kind Regards,
Ian./