Desktop imaging solutions?

[Auger282]

I'm looking for ideas on desktop imaging solutions and I was wondering what everyone else is using out there...

We have more than one type of system so I'm looking for a solution that could handle setting up images for more then one piece of hardware...

Lower cost would be better but I'm just looking to see whats out there at this point.

Thanks

 

[SjrH]

Just about all places i've worked in have used Ghost in one form or other. Personally, I think its the best tool for the job, especially in a corporate environment.

[small]Listen to those who know, believe in those that do[/small]

 

[leavitron]

Ghost is a lot cheaper, but Altiris Deployment Solution has a lot more tools. I'm at my second employer using Altiris. They have a great support forum, too. The best help doesn't really come from the Altiris people, but from other users themselves. To me that is the best definition of "community.

 

[MasterRacker]

This one's free but it's still a beta so use at your own risk.

http://partitionlogic.org.uk/index.html

_____
Jeff
[small][purple]It's never too early to begin preparing for [/purple]International Talk Like a Pirate Day
"The software I buy sucks, The software I write sucks. It's time to give up and have a beer..." - Me[/small]

 

[mrmovie]

you should be using SYSPREP'd images i would say (RIS/ADS or if you fancy the new WDS). this allows for the most flexible approach when it comes to different hardware types and MS supports the use of this type of imaging

 

[GTclint]

matrix42 has a really good solution for managing multiple systems using their dynamic hardware recognition technology. You wouldn't have to build or maintain images, just one OS template can be built regardless of the technology. Really cool solution.

http://www.matrix42.com/en

 

[skissinger]

BDD (Business Desktop Deployment)

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/desktopdeployment/gettingstarted.mspx

and/or

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/desktopdeployment/bddoverview.mspx

Blog:

http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/skissinger/

 

[shakatak]

I've used Ghost in the past and it has worked for me but I did run into problems with it everyone now and then, so I started using True Image and by far it leaves Ghost in the dust.


Try it. I highly reccomend it because it saved my butt when Ghost failed me at my current job.

http://www.acronis.com

 

[SuperPCManster]

First post here, but this one caught my eye (sorry for the novel).

So Ghost is OK, but it's a point solution. Acronis is a great imaging engine, but it's also a point solution. We went down this road and ultimately chose Altiris because we wanted a management framework, not just a point solution.

We chose to review RIS/ADS/SMS, Altiris, and LANDesk based on Gartner reviews.

SMS was the cheapest, but we were less then impressed with their imaging capabilities and integration. We still had to consider the fact that is was Microsoft managing a Microsoft environment, but systems management just doesn't appear to be that important to them.

LANDesk was a quick setup, but imaging was not stellar and they really only worked with Lenovo from a vendor standpoint (although they were working on some stuff with Dell). We were also did not get great reference feedback, which was a little weird since we gave them 3 weeks to provide us with 2 references that had reviewed the same vendors (one was actually considering switching but didn't feel it was proper to share who they were moving to until it was done).

Altiris worked with Dell, HP, IBM, and Fujitsu and their imaging engine was awesome. Their web console didn't have a lot of "sex appeal", but they showed us a beta of their new console at the time (now production) and we were certainly impressed. Imaging was pretty straight forward and they had some pretty nice tools for hardware independent imaging. We purchased consulting time to help with the hardware independent imaging to get it done quickly and we have ended up with an imaging process that uses one image, does an on the fly driver injection (called FIRM copy I believe), supports multiple HAL's (Microsoft supported method), and does a bunch of post image functions to add the PC to the domain, deliver the appropriate software based on OU, patch, and inventory. Basically we can have a PC shipped to an end user, have them plug it in, and it will take care of itself (we don't normally, but we can and have done this).

If you just care about imaging I would do two things:

1. Review Altiris Deployment Solution and Acronis
2. Talk to your hardware vendor to find out who they use and why they use them.

 

[mrmovie]

ADS rules, WDS is out soon and is supposed to be better and fingers crossed has a windows client client. you can use ADS for client OS's but only to dump down the image

 

[jackson55]

I just saw this post and looked at that Matrix42 product and it looked pretty good. Is this something anyone is using?

 

[n8r]

we were using a ghosting solution before, but we have found a better solution. We were already lisenced for SMS, and we were approached by a company that had put together all of the other free tools from MS to create what they called "Desktop Lifecycle MAnagement"... It does a much better job, and we are deploying multiple images to different hardware in 15 mins or less.

 

[jackson55]

Awesome - how do you do that?

 

[jackson55]

I looked into the Altris and this seems great so far; any other info you can provice on this?