The Deployment Of Software And Os

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Contents

Introduction

In this report the discussions of thin clients, what requirements are needed for successful use and benefits that are gained. Also the deployment of software and OS to client computers.

Deployment of Software and OS

When dealing with a single PC the initial set up of the system is fairly straight-forward. Firstly a disc with the OS needs to be loaded onto the system disk via disk drive, then the installation and set-up of the operating system with the all-important Licence Key to be entered correctly when instructed to do so, all very easy, but when there is more than one pc, doing this procedure becomes very labour intensive. One answer to this solution is Microsoft Answer Files.

An Answer File is a file that stores settings and values to use during windows setup. During installation the answer file can create various setup options you can set which may include how to partition a disk, the location of the windows image to install, and which product key to apply. There are certain values you can apply to a Windows installation such as, names of users accounts and there settings, system settings, internet explorer favourites, etc. (Microsoft, 2013).

Volume licences can be bought for big organisations which need the product and not the media that it is stored on and many installations can be activated on the same volume licence eliminating the need for installing a product key. The volume licence for the software limits the amount of installations allowed

WDS

When an organisation uses an old operating system, such as Win XP pro, and want to upgrade to Win 7 pro or enterprise there are many ways of doing this but we are going to discuss a couple of them. In server 2003 it uses a RIS (Remote Installations Services) this is an automated installation of an image of the operating system and, or a complete computer set ups including desktop settings and applications. These images can then be downloaded to client computers, doing this would be slow and costly if done individually on each PC. WDS (Windows Deployment Services) is an upgrade of RIS and in both instances both relies on the PC NIC (Network Interface Card) which has a TFTP (Trivial File Transfer Protocol) implemented on it with a MAC Address to Pre-Boot execute (PXE) this allows the PC with no Operating System to start up and remotely connect over a network to a server which has the image, which in turn sends the image back along the network and then installs the Image onto the hard disk of the client computer.

Note: the network servers must have AD(Active Directories), DNS (Domain Name System) and DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) working on them so that it can give an IP address when the PC PXE Boots (Microsoft, 2013)

Symantec Ghost

Another method of deploying and imaging systems is the Symantec Ghost Solution Suite 2.0. GHOST (General Hardware-Oriented System Transfer) is a cloning program sold by Symantec, it claims to be better and easier to use when compared to Microsoft solutions.

It manages the deployment of Operating Systems very quickly over a corporate network because it uses multicast which reduces network traffic.

It uses a technology called Deploy Anywhere; this allows the images that are going to be deployed to work on any hardware set up on the PC, it does this by a database and the database puts the correct drivers for the hardware on the system. This saves the time to do multiple images that contain drivers for different hardware configurations. Note: this requires Windows SysPrep (Appendix 3)

In conjunction with this, it uses hardware and software inventories, it creates these inventories of the hardware and software of every system in turn these can be used as filters. Apply a hardware filter and an image can be deployed based on that filter i.e. an image has been created for a game development program, the game program needs a GPU card and so needs the drivers and software to work. You can select a system based on GPU card and deploy the image based on the filter. The same can be done with the software (Symantec corporation, 2013).

User migration allows for the settings on a system to be kept, like passwords, display settings, compatibility settings, etc. to the latest OS, including windows 7. (Appendix 1)

Symantec Ghost allows for a complete and secure migration which is from one system to another when a user is not connected to a network. This can be done either by a client or admin initiated operation via a web based system. It can also create group of images which can be deployed with the image that has certain parameters to subnets, hardware type etc. (Symantec corporation, 2013).

There is another feature which supports this product which is called Hot Imaging; this takes the reference system image keeping it up to date, which is able to deploy images from a reference machine without the need to first create the image and then deploy it. It saves time when an urgent deployment is needed e.g. security update, application is needed etc. (Appendix 2)

Evaluating Which deployment

WDS only allows you to deploy windows OS only, which can be a good thing if you are only using Microsoft products, but some corporate companies may use various OS along their networks which could limit Money and time to do the job in hand. Since WDS uses the network to deploy windows OS it saves time and resources because you do not have to install the OS individually on the workstations via a CD or DVD medium. Symantec Ghost does basically the same as WDS, deployment, imaging and management of windows, but can also do the same for Linux OS which could be useful for a corporate company. The big difference between both deployments methods mentioned in this report is the cost. With Symantec Ghost you have to buy a licence equal to the amount of workstations you own, one licence for one workstation, this could become very expensive if you own a lot. Whereas, WDS is free when you buy a volume licence, so where costs are everything ,the trend would be to opt for the WDS method of deployment providing that it is Microsoft products that you are only dealing with, but very difficult to use. Of course it depends what you want on your network for which option you go for.

Thin Clients

Thin clients came about in the sixties when computers took nearly whole rooms up; these were aptly called mainframe computers. Thin clients or Dumb terminals as they were know by were used to interface with the mainframe, all they consisted of was a keyboard and a monitor these connected via serial leads to the mainframe. The mainframe did all the computational work the dumb terminal (thin client) only inputted (keyboard) and outputted (Monitor) the data (Tyson, 2010).

The requirements for the thin client set up are very minimal because as mentioned before it relies solely on the server (or mainframe) for its computation of data. The thin client basically connects via a terminal for its session; and because it does not need its own hardisk, memory, disk drives, etc. there is very little expense involved, and basically all it needs is a keyboard, mouse and screen. The benefits for using a thin client set up are:

Cheap

More secure

Easy to maintain

This is because everything is controlled by the server (datacentre) which is central to all the hardware and software (PCmag.com, 2013). Thin clients have evolved from this simple concept to VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure). This allows the hosting of an OS on a virtual machine on a server where users can access their own desktop environment from anywhere and from any device. So the traditional thin client machine would be restricted to the location of the server now the thin client can be anywhere. The advantages of this are; easier management, secure because it is controlled via the server. Reduced costs in hardware and software because you can use old PC’s as thin clients to run the latest OS (Foster, 2012)