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Deployment Options

Specops Deploy provides a strikingly simple interface, broken out into Packages, Targets, and Deployments. In addition there is also a "Deploy Package Wizard" that takes you through the process of creating a package, target and deployment step-by-step.

When specifying the location of a package it is recommended that you include only the package and required source files the chosen folder. This is because Specops Deploy distributes not just the specified file, but the folder for the specified file (including any other files and subfolders present alongside it). For MSI packages, you'll probably want to store your MSI in its own folder (with no subfolders) but for legacy setups you are deploying as command line installations, a folder and its subfolders may well be what you need to get the job done.

Groups of targets are created in the “Targets” view of the Specops Deploy Control Center. By default, you have “All computers” and “All users” and may create others by simply pressing the “New Target” button. When you do so, you are first asked to specify if this is a Computer target or a User target, then you choose a name for the target group and select the target criteria. This is another place where you have the opportunity to move beyond the traditional limits of group policy- you may choose Security Groups, Computers, Organizational Units, Sites or Operating Systems. Multiple qualifiers may be specified, and for operating systems, you have the choice of specifying the edition of Windows as well as the service pack number (see screen shot). You may even specify certain criteria for systems to be excluded from the target group.

With Group Policy alone you have to trigger a reboot for a computer assigned installation (or removal) to take place, but not here! After successfully deploying a package to a few test machines, I instructed Specops Deploy to “Undeploy” the package and I did not restart the clients. Sure enough, in about two hours, the package removed itself from the specified targets. Why two hours? Installations take as long to trigger as any other Group Policy update would. By default this is 90 minutes, plus a random interval between 0 and 30 minutes. However, you can force an update using GPUPDATE.EXE (or “SECEDIT /Refreshpolicy machine_policy” on Windows 2000) and Specops Deploy will see the deployment and take action right away.

As with any Group Policy deployment you can immediately view the results in the Windows Application Event Log, but it is the remote real-time deployment status that really makes Specops Deploy shine.
 

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