What should be a good reason to install the Altiris Workflow Solution? There are several correct answers to this question. But the best business case is where you use the Workflow Solution to perform tasks for you. This can be from generating accounts, to generating reports for your management. In my case we need it to do some self-provisioning for our users.
For one of our customers we developed Project Virtual Storm. Project Virtual Storm is all about Virtualisation in a safe and secure manner. Especially the costs of power usage are brought down to an absolute minimum. Virtual Storm is all about extreme virtualisation.
More information about Project Virtual Storm can be found on www.virtualstorm.org
Virtual Storm is all about managing one image with one central repository for each operating system. This image, without the repository, is used as a template for the clients that are provisioned by VMware VDI.
But Virtual Storm gives us some troubles. Because everyone starts with one single point we needed a way to provide software based on users access and especially based on what a user may have.
This is where Workflow comes in. It provides a self-provisioning web site that enables the users that are working on the Virtual Storm environment an easy way to prepare for their classroom.
What is the business case?
Every Monday morning at 7:00 am the teachers come in and they have to prepare a computing environment for the students. The students are working on Ultra Thin Sunray clients. This means they have a card with a little chip on it that enables them to use a computer image. On this computer image there is Altiris SVS and the DinamiQs add-on DVS4VDI installed.
SVS and DVS4VDI enable a user to use the virtualised software that is on a shared repository on a SAN (Storage Area Network). In fact this means that 1000 users are sharing one FSLRDR directory. The VDI image itself is only 197 MB and it contains 100 GB of software. The unique capabilities of SVS make this possible.
But the teachers do not need all the 100 GB of software. They only want the software that the students need for that course. Instead of designing lots of profiles for the various courses, over 100 different courses, with all the software defined for that course, we provided the teachers with a way to self-provisioning the software that they need.
How does it work?
With Workflow we can design a web page for the teachers that enable them to select what they need in the course. The teacher sees all the various options that he or she can select. By selecting the environment the chip cards are automatically configured to perform the various tasks.
So we let the teacher select the following things:
Operating system:
Software:
- SAP gui
- Business objects version
- Office version
- Adobe Acrobat version
- Open Office
Then the teacher can select the number of users. The accounts are created automatically. All accounts will start with HTBT(number of training) and a following number. So the accounts will look like this: HTBT18ST01 HTBT18ST02 and so on.
The teacher can also select the default password he needs for the particular training.
But this is only for the teachers and the students that come in on Monday morning and that will follow 1 to 5 day training. Then the students leave and another group of students are preparing to start.
In this company we also have several thousands of users that have been working for one or more years at the company, and they have completely different issues. Every user somewhere in his career gets the Virtual Storm image and his desktop will get exchanged for a Sunray client.
From that point on we are going to make the user self provided. He or she can go to the intranet site of the company and there are several things that can be done:
- Create a helpdesk call
- Ask for new software
- Change his company profile settings
- Change his email-address
- And much more.
Workflow will help them do most tasks themselves. When they create a helpdesk call, they can add all the information. The call is submitted to the helpdesk and they can help the user further in resolving the problem.
When they need particular software the user fills in the software request. The workflow can check if there is a license and it can add the software to the users profile. When the software is not available the call will be rerouted to the helpdesk and they can ask the user's manager if he agrees in the request for the software. If yes, the helpdesk generates a packaging request so that the software can be added to the centralized repository. When that process is done, the software will be added to the user's profile and he or she can start using the software.
Because all the software is in a centralized repository as a virtualised SVS layer we can even add a Workflow module so that a user can activate, de-activate and reset a software layer. The DVS4VDI software will let the user only see and use the software that is added to the profile. The user will not be able to activate software that he is not eligible to.
In this series of articles I'm going to guide you through various actions you need to perform before the Workflow is ready to run. This means I'm going to guide you through the installation of Notification Server 6.0. Workflow needs a Notification Server for authentication.
Then we are going to install and configure the Workflow Solution.
When our Workflow Solution is up and running we are going to install and configure the Workflow Designer. This will help you build and design your first workflows.
Also I'm going to guide you through some tasks that can be done with Workflow.
All the actions you will see in this series of articles are performed for a customer and I'm going to share them with you.
This series of articles will not make you one of the best in the Workflow designing, but it will guide you into the first steps, explaining to you how to build and design your environment, also explaining to you how to make some workflow designs to do your job.
Maybe this will inspire you to get the solution into your company and to take all the benefits into your work to get your job done in an easy manner. I definitely believe your users will enjoy using this kind of self service solution in a way you never thought that would be possible.
Workflow will help us in all tasks that we have to do, and especially in such a controlled environment like Virtual Storm, Workflow is one of the coolest additions.
If you have any questions, please contact me by the Juice contact form or send E-mail to erik@svs4u.nl
With kind regards,
Erik Westhovens
www.virtualstorm.org