May 22nd User Group Meeting Notes
Our meeting was highlighted by a remote presentation from Altrinsic Solutions covering their Deploy Expert (DX) product and their new Enterprise Driver Manager (EDM) product. Sanjay Kuba, VP at GSS Infotech, provided a Symantec education update. Altrinsic Solutions was represented by John Patton, co-owner, Rachel, our regional manager, and an Altrinsic technical engineer.
Altrinsic Solutions. Goals the Altrinsic solutions attempt to meet are: 1) as few images as possible, and 2) zero-touch deployment. It was announced that Altrinsic’s hardware independent imaging solution (HIIS) has recently become a patented process. Background was provided to show the reasons why they treat a computer as a collection of unique parts. They see their product’s usefully addressing the needs to keep drivers up-to-date and consistent as well as redeploying operating systems. Handouts were provided showing the DX four step process: 1) Analyze, 2) Harvest, 3) Integrate and 4) Maintenance. The Altrinsic products integrate into the Symantec Management Platform (SMP 7.1).
DX provides distinct profiles based on operating system for your environment. These profiles can be managed by device filters to narrow the scope of hardware analysis and inventory. Policies are set within each profile which affects the deployment jobs. Within the profiles, hardware classes are identified to include only systems that are exactly identical, therefore capable of sharing a driver pack and ready for zero touch OS deployment. The analysis provides a summary of all the systems in your environment and identifies all the differences within those systems.
The driver repository DX uses is built from your enterprise using its Harvest feature. As new machines (and drivers) are introduced to your enterprise another harvest can be done. As the repository contains ready to deploy single instance packages, keep drivers up-to-date is easy and manageable. You can also choose to update the driver repository manually.
DX regularly analyzes the SMP hardware inventory ensuring all systems remain deployment ready. Deployment can be based the exactly identical classes or based on the OEM model (for initial deployment). DX can harvest printer drivers as well as other hardware related software. DX does not harvest software applications from PCs.
GSS Infotech. A change with the Symantec/Altiris 7.1 product is the need to use SMP. The SMP is also the management platform to be used for the Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP) products. Sanjay suggested we look into combining our endpoint management user group with the North Dakota user group for endpoint protection.
The Symantec education GSS Infotech provides follows four steps of 1) Assess – using the Symantec assessment tool, 2) Discover – using a GSS Infotech customized training path, 3) Plan – using Symantec’s learning options, and 4) Prove – with Symantec certification. The Symantec education offers both technical and best practice training.
The Symantec offerings attempt to meet all customers with instructor-led training (ITL), a Virtual Academy, On-Demand ITL (video), an eLibrary, and new Tech Centers. The new Tech Centers for SEP and Backup Exec have free sample modules and are priced at $49/year at http://go.symantec.com/education_septc and http://go.symantec.com/education_betc. The eLibrary price is $1000/year and has 15 minute to hour long presentations; volume discounts and enterprise licenses are available. GSS Infotech can use the eLibrary to bring students up to speed before attending a Symantec class. GSS can customize and blend a curriculum and provides monthly webinars.
GSS handed-out syllabi for four Symantec offerings: 1) Symantec Management Platform 7.1 (5 day), 2) Altiris Client Management Suite 7.1 Administration (Warranty) (5 day), 3) Altiris Deployment Solution 7.1: Administration (3-day), and 4) Symantec Endpoint Protection 12.1: Administration. Slide prints were provided from the training titled Altiris Deployment Solution 7.1 SP1 Administration. The next free webinar on May 30 is titled, Reduce Your Workload by Using Hardware Independent Imaging, and you can register at www.gssinfotech.com/news/events.html.
The current version of Altiris 6.9 is Service Pack (SP) 5 and Maintenance Release (MR) 2. There were winners of the three drawings at the end of the user group meeting.