Appendix B
Microsoft RichCopy is a freely available utility written by Microsoft Developer Ken Tamaru. It is designed to copy large numbers of files over the network. It is optimized for high performance and supports many useful features such as Graphical User Interface and command-line interface, extended file and directory include and exclude filtering, FTP access, retain timestamp, remove files from destination that do not exist at source, verify, retry and resume failed copies, and much more.
A common scenario that begs the use of RichCopy is to replicate images, personality packages, software packages, etc. for use with Deployment Solution 6.x. Deployment Solution 6.x does not have any built-in mechanism for file replication, so RichCopy fits very nicely here. This section outlines how to replicate these files in conjunction with Deployment Solution 6.x, but you can use the process to replicate any files to any servers. It is best to have the same share name on all servers, including the Deployment Server. You may name this share anything you like, but we will refer to it having the name "Deployment".
On all servers, including Deployment Server, determine a location with free space to hold all your images, personality packages, software packages, etc. with plenty of room to grow. Create a directory named "Deployment" and share this directory as "Deployment". Once you have done this, you will need to move these files into the Deployment share of your Deployment Server.
Now you need to replicate these files to your other servers. Since Deployment Server does not automatically replicate files between servers, you will need to manage this replication yourself using Microsoft RichCopy.
On all of the servers you want to replicate the Deployment share to, download and install Microsoft RichCopy. You can find it at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2009.04.utilityspotlight.aspx.
After you have installed it, you will need to determine the command-line parameters you will be using as described in the following sections.
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