Deployment Solution

Hi All,

Firstly, I have very little experience with Deployment Server so please bear with me.
I am on a client site and they use a build to install most base apps but one we want to install after the build is Symantec Antivirus to ensure it connects to the correct SAV server. The probelm we are faced with is that we create the job with conditions (all works great) then add a group to the deployment job, also works great with computers already added to the group. However any computers added to the group after the job is created do not get the software deployed. The only way appears to drag the computers in individually.
This seams to be a basic functionality of a deployment tool but I can't find any information in the forums or Google.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

DS works by assigning jobs.  Once the job is run, unless you set it on a "scheduled" basis, it will not run again on any machine in the group unless you re-assign it.  I believe what you are looking for is NS and the ability to assign software tasks to computer collections.  This would accomplish what you are looking for.

You can accomplish this by creating a Task with several jobs associated with it. Where the OS/image job is ran, then your AV install can immediately run as part of the same task.

This way if you ever re-start the task, all the jobs within it will still run.

Timinator has a good idea if the group is known right at the beginning of a build, however, if the goal is to deploy the image to a machine and then determine which group it belongs to it would not work well, or if a computer changes groups.

Correct me if I am wrong, but the goal is go be able to assign it to a group and have the software and/or settings be applied based upon the group... right?  Another option would to schedule the task to run on a recurring basis (this can be dangerous though, especially if anything you put in the task/job requires a reboot).

Or as I suggested above NS was designed more with this in mind (if a computer changes collections, the new collections policies would be enforced on that computer).  This does require you to more actively administer your NS though.

bhawver - sound like I need to get more information on NS, This is a company that is merging so we only have access to DS. The initial hurdle in to get SAV installed after the build, as soon as the PC reboots after joining the domain.
Timanator - I had hoped to just run it as a task after the build script but the build we have been presented with only uses altiris to call an hta file, so the task completes before the build has.
bhawver - I set up the task with conditions to check OS version and if SAV is installed and with these conditions I scheduled it to run every 15 min. Again it worked great for computers already added to the group but new computers added didn't pick up the task when scheduled task ran again.

Also what do you recommend deploying software using "Run Script" or "Distribute Software"

Thanks again for all the advice.

One thing I can suggest that might make things easier is to do what Timanator suggested and make it part of your build.  If you want the computer to connect to a specific SAV server, you might run the install as a script and do simple "if" commands (or "case" if in linux) with your computer's IP subnet.  That's how we handle new builds here (for example... if a new build happens in one of our remote sites, the script looks at the IP subnet and deploys the SAV client pointing to the correct server).  This is great for pointing to servers, but will most likely not work for you if you are looking to deploy to a specific group on a server (unless that group is subnet based).

I would suggest in your case that you make it part of the procedure that when the computer gets moved into the group that the particular job is run on it.  NS will be a good option especially if you ever make changes to what a group has installed, it works almost like AD group policies in that way.  But again, I caution you that you will need to actively administer the NS as well.

In regards to deploying software via "run script" or "distribute software".  I use it both ways.  When I need to customize how it is installed via a script (i.e. command line switches) I use "run script".  When it is a small MSI file that does not need any switches, I use "distribute software".

You could also install SAV and then inject the certificate to tell which server to report to.
About the run script or distribute software i prefer run script. Run script has been really good for me whereas distribute software usually gives me a trouble or two...