[THIN] Re: OT: Imaging Dell Servers

  • From: "Luchette, Jon" <JLuchette@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2006 18:27:22 -0500

Thanks Jeff, I appreciate the reply.  I have few questions about building a 
scripted install, only because it isn't something I have done in the past.  But 
I would love to give it a whirl if it might allow me to accomplish what I need.
 

*       
        How would I get started in creating a scripted install?  For example, 
what would I need  (2003 CD, boot disk, any utils, etc...)
*       
        How would I deploy the install?  Could I just burn it to a CD and then 
run it locally on the target systems?
*       
        Would I be able to package in other settings and applications into the 
install so they would be installed and configured automatically?
*       
        How much scripting knowledge is needed to do this?  
        Any information you could provide me on this approach would be greatly 
appreciated. 

Thanks again!

________________________________

From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx on behalf of Jeff Pitsch
Sent: Mon 1/16/2006 6:05 PM
To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [THIN] Re: OT: Imaging Dell Servers


Imaging by defination is high overhead.  Why not build a scripted install?  
That way you could even use it with servers of different brands, etc with 
minimal changes and you've given yourself much more flexibility over the long 
haul and no dedicated hardware needed especially for changes in the future. 
 
Jeff Pitsch

 
On 1/16/06, Luchette, Jon <JLuchette@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: 

        Hello,
         
        I have worked primarily with HP servers in the past, so with Dell 
servers (850's and 1850's) I am in need of a little help.  I am trying to 
figure out the best way to go about designing an imaging strategy for Dell 
servers without a lot of overhead.  Ideally what I want to do is to build a 
source server, configure it with security settings and policies, install a few 
little add-on applications and capture an image from it.  I would like to then 
be able to then easily take that image file and deploy it to any new servers of 
the same model.  The environment is small so if I had to even burn that image 
file onto a bootable cd, and then boot all new servers from that cd to deploy 
the image, that would work just fine.  I don't want to have a dedicated imaging 
server unless I absolutely have to because it is such a small environment.   
But I guess if there was no other way, I could boot servers up with network 
boot disks specific to their NICs and pull down the images from the imaging 
server that way.   I just don't know how licensing for the imaging application 
would work in this type of design, I don't want to have to buy a license for 
every server that I image.  If I could get away with only having one or two 
licenses than that would work out. 
         
        Anybody have any recommendations for me?  Does anybody know of a free 
util that I could use to accomplish this?
        I have looked at Dell's Deployment ToolKit v2.0 but I think this is not 
really for imaging a server but more for a Pre-OS environment.  
         
        Thanks Guys,
         
        /jL
         


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