OS Deployment

PXE and Client initiated OS image deployments are supported, as well as an integrated client/profile migration tool. Focusing on the image deployment itself, this describes an image deployment handled by the installed LANDesk client agent.

1. Management Suite connects to the client and runs any pre-configuration commands you may have specified in the image deployment script.
2. OS deployment uses LANDesk’s Enhanced Software Distribution agent to distribute a virtual boot partition file to the client and modifies the boot sector to boot from this file- and then reboots the client.
3. The client boots to DOS, detects and loads a network driver, then retrieves and installs the image file from the image server.
   • For non-Sysprep images, the client reboots after the imaging completes. OS deployment considers the job complete after this reboot.
   • For Sysprep images, the deployment continues as described in steps 4 through 7:
4. Before rebooting and loading the image, the DOS agent replaces SYSPREP.INF with a customized file for that client.
5. The imaged client boots and customizes itself based on what is in the SYSPREP.INF file.
6. Any post-image commands you may have specified in the image deployment script are run from the RunOnce registry key.
7. Finally the LANDesk client is installed using your default client configuration.

When creating your OS Deployment script to create an image, you can even choose what imaging utility you wish to use: Ghost, PowerQuest, Other or LANDesk. I chose LANDesk, but still had to locate the network path to its imaging tool (which I found at “\\landesk1\ldmain\osd\imaging\IMAGE.EXE”). Like everything else, the wizards collected the information, with all the details you would hope to see fully accounted for.

Closing

LANDesk has it all covered. And its impressive set of features are not thrown together for the sake of boasting that they have it all covered. Every option I dug into asked all the right questions and presented everything I would want to see. The interface is excellent- both in terms of looks and functionality. Inventory reporting, asset reports, queries (to build collections of systems) were all top notch. Even the task reporting was excellent- when I would try to trip it up by turning off a machine during the image process, the status was quickly updated in the console to show a failure status (with a result of: “Ping: no response form target within specified time”). The evaluation copy provides a 45 day license for 100 clients and 5 servers- if you are evaluating products for desktop management, I strongly recommend including LANDesk in your evaluations. With its wide range of well thought out features, it is a likely winner for most any size organization.

Bob Kelly
3/12/04
AppDeploySM

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