Deployment Solution

This course has been developed to help all you fresh faced Deployment Server (DS) administrators get a good footing in the setup and configuration of Altiris Deployment Server. The aim is to cover the basics, point out common pitfalls and illustrate best practice whenever possible.

These notes are however not intended to act as a replacement for the official 5-day DS training provided by Altiris. The chapters that will follow are intended to be covered in a couple of days, and therefore miss many areas covered by the official course. I recommend that if you intend managing DS in a production capacity that you take the official course and get certified. Indeed, after this quick start your understanding of DS's basic functionality will allow you to absorb much more than is typically expected of a trainee on the official course.

With my recommendation that you attend the official course, a good question is why develop this quick-start. The main motivation came from seeing many people new to Altiris struggle with the product. In the majority of cases, this boiled down to organisations not being able to afford the time and expense of sending their desktop administrators on the official training. It seemed what was missing was a low-cost, quick-start option -a course focusing on the basics as seen from the viewpoint of an experienced Deployment Server administrator. My hope is that armed with the information you'll find within these pages, that you'll be able to install and configure a useful deployment service which will prove of great benefit in the years ahead.

Before we begin though, let's take a step back and ponder that age old question, 'why are we here?'

Desktop Lifecycle Management

In the drive for efficiency and modernisation, organisations can tend to invest in IT hardware without considering the bigger picture of how to support and manage it. This can result in the funding for support infrastructure being provided on an ad-hoc, fire-fighting basis. The result is a desktop with a disproportionately high Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) when compared with the service being provided.

Figure 1: Gartner Magic Quadrant (2008) showing Altiris as the most visionary of the vendors in the PC lifecycle management market. In both the 2008 and 2006 reports, LANdesk is just a whisper behind.

The TCO (despite being very buzz-wordy) is very important. It represents the total cost of owning a computer in your enterprise. It is calculated not only the purchase price, but on other items such as software, user support, training, helpdesk, back-end server infrastructure, maintenance, disposal -and the list goes on. The result is that the true cost of providing a computer in the enterprise (the TCO) is many times the initial purchase price. It's therefore critical to manage the cost of your enterprise's desktops over their entire lifecycle so that your TCO can be reduced. This isn't just about saving money for its own sake (although that's not a bad thing!), it is also about managing your enterprise better, and actually providing a better experience to the end-users.

Many products have come into the market place to meet today's increasing expectations of service whilst maintaining a reasonable TCO. Some of the major players in this market are:

• Novell's Zenworks
• LANDesk Management Suite
• Altiris' Client Management Suite (CMS)
• Microsoft's Systems Center Configuration Manager (SCCM)

Although each product has its strengths and weaknesses, the two which consistently rank at the top of the list for feature breadth and platform support are Altiris and LANDesk (see Figure 1).

Altiris' Deployment Server (DS) is the component of their Client Management Suite which underpins the deployment phase in your workstations' lifecycle. It is also, one of the most comprehensive solutions that Altiris provides.

Deployment Server has all the basic features we desire from a desktop deployment tool - image storage and delivery, automatic partition resizing, scripted OS installation, software packaging and live reporting. It can also store and deliver both Windows Domain and Novell Client configuration information which is essential to deployment on Microsoft and Novell networks. In addition to the above, Deployment Server can:

• Push out applications, patches & printers
• Capture and migrate users profiles for OS upgrades (Personality Transplant)
• Remotely control clients (chat client included)
• Run ad-hoc scripts to maintain and fix issues in your enterprise

Remember though that Deployment Server is not in the market to compete with Microsoft's Active Directory or Novell's Directory Services -DS is designed to manage workstations -not users. So you'll still require an enterprise directory service such as Active Directory or Novell's Directory Services for user management (and possibly even some aspects of workstation management too).

Index of Articles:

Part 1: Introduction

• Desktop Lifecycle Management

Part 2: Deployment Server Concepts

• Computer Images
• The Production and Automation Environments
• The Deployment Server Agents

Part 3: Preparing your Server

• Service Infrastructure Considerations
• CPU, Memory and Disk Resource Considerations
      CPU Utilisation
      RAM Utilisation
      Disk Utilisation
• Installing IIS
• Installing SQL Server 2008 Express Edition
      Install Prerequisites
      Install SQL Server 2008 Express Edition
      Configuring SQL Server to accept TCP Connections

Part 4: Installing Deployment Server

• Downloading Deployment Server
• Creating an Altiris Service Account
• Beginning the Deployment Server Installation
      Selecting the Install Type
      Configuring the Deployment Share
      The Pre-Boot Operating Systems
      Installation Components
      Installation Information Summary

Part 5: Securing the Service Account

• Configuring permissions for the service account
      Configuring Altiris Service account permissions on express share
      Configuring Altiris Service account permissions in registry
• Scoping the Service Account in SQL Server
• Demoting the service account
• The Deployment Server Services

Part 6: SQL Server Recovery Models

• Quick Intro into MS SQL Server
      Backing up the transaction log
      MS SQL Database Recovery Models
• SQL Server 2008 Default Recovery Model
• Confirming Your Database Recovery Model
• Why should I backup my database?
• Why Shouldn’t SQL Express be used in Production?

Part 7: The Deployment Console

• The DS Console Layout
      The Computers Pane
      The Jobs Pane
      The Details Pane
      The ToolBars

Part 8: Agent Installation Methods

• The Deployment Server Agent Branches
• Installing the AClient manually
      The User Level AClient Settings
      Uninstall the AClient
• Installing the AClient using Remote Agent Installer
• Scripted Agent Deployment
      Installing the AClient using a Script

Part 9: DAgent Installation Methods

• Installing the DAgent manually
      DAgent Notification Area issues     The User Level DAgent Settings     Uninstall the DAgent
• Installing the DAgent using Remote Agent Installer
• Scripted DAgent Deployment
      Installing the DAgent using a Script     Central Configuration of the Deployment Server Agents

Part 10: Using the Deployment Console

• Computer Inventory
• Computer Groups
• Jobs: Creating a Power Control Task
• Helpdesk Reboot and Agent Prompts
• Remote Control
• The Remote Red Eye
• Chat

Part 11: Imaging with PXE

• Production and Automation Recap
• The PXE Boot Process
• The PXE Boot Process
• Uploading an Image
      The Image File
      Process Flow for Image Upload thru PXE
      Deploying an Image

Part 12: Configuring PXE for DOS

• Why Bother with DOS at all?
• Tuning the DOS TCP Stack
      TCP Window Size Memory Considerations
• Adding DOS Automation Support
• Creating a ‘DOS Managed’ PXE Option

Part 13: Configuring PXE for WinPE

• The History of WinPE
      Altiris and WinPE Support
• Adding WinPE Automation Support

Part 14: Scripting XP SP3

• Building an XP Scripted Install Job
• Scripted Install Overview