Zenworks 3.2/4 Imaging vs Ghost 5

[Bandjelek]

Hello,

We just upgraded from ZfD3.0 to 3.2SP1 (and will possibly move to Zen 4 in the near future), and are considering Zenworks Imaging to replace Ghost.

I'd like to know what other people that had implemented Zen3.2/4 imaging think about it. Also, how it compares with Ghost, pros-cons, pitfalls, etc.

Any suggestion & experience sharing would be appreciated!

Thanks,
Bandjelek

 

[ITsmyfault]

to etosamo:
better late than never I hope! for remote installs, Zfd lets you image locally, so add a 2nd active partition (fat16 or 32 only though) to the machine big enough to hold the image and stick the needed image there. Then when one of your roadwarriors trashes the thing, you can walk them through re-imaging themselves locally (and *quickly*) a 1 GB image should take about 30 seconds at 35MB/sec (what I get from reasonably modern hardware after tweaking) so under a minute.. that should please all but the most hyper exec.
make the imaging floppies, get to a bash prompt and type img <enter> to see all your options..

ps: with a little linux trickery, we are DL base Win2k images in under 2.5min now (~600MB compressed). This is bumping up against the max for a 100Mbps lan, so I doubt there is much speed difference to be had from here.. 4-5MBps is all there is. I'm one happy camper.

PPS: There is a great cool solutions now on hdparm and how to properly edit the linux.2 file.

 

[tyoung7]

I just started a new job and they have Zen 4 but they are not using it for imageing. I have not used Zen in years. I have used a product by Altiris. It is very easy to use and has a lot of power. Zen seems difficult to work with. I am not impressed with Zen after working with Altiris. I do like the application launcher in Zen.

 

[GarryThompson]

I think after using Zen for a while you'll soon see the value of it compared to Altiris, epsecially when you use it on a large site, With Altiris, it can be more complex to set up and you also find you'll need more servers running SQL etc, so the costs escalate for hardware and software licensing. You'll also find that because ZEN is tied in with NDS, it is much easier to administer.

Garry Thompson

 

[tyoung7]

I have used Altiris in a very large site. It is not hard to learn and it was easy to install. From everyone I have spoken to they say Zen is extremely hard to install and administer. Altiris does import ad and soon will be able to go both ways. It soon will also intergrate into edirectory. The things that they are trying to do with Zen is taking forever compared to what I can do with Altiris. I have been looking at Zen and it is not easy to administrate. Zens application delivery is awesome. Hp, Dell, MSN and Cisco have all switched to Altiris.

 

[Provogeek]

Here is a link if you want to compare the two products. I was unable to find anything good that was not published by Novell, and Altiris did not offer any studies or white papaers on their site.

http://www.novell.com/collateral/4621336/4621336.pdf

It's really just user preference and training. I can sit here and tell you how great ZENWorks is and slam Altiris into the ground saying how difficult it is to use. I would find it difficult to use because I am trained on ZENWorks and I know ZENWorks.

The way I see it, if your in an eDirectory enviroment, ZENWorks is the right choice. If your in an Active Directory enviroment, then Altiris is the way to go.

I can not find any information to conferm your claim that Altiris will support eDirectory any time soon.

The only thing I see that ZEN has over Altiris (asside from app deploymnet and policy managment) is you can't intergrate Altiris into a pure NetWare enviroment. Only runs on Windows and only uses M$ technology. ZEN however will run from a Windows server as well as a NetWare server, because eDirectory is cross platform and you don't even need a Novell client to use the features of ZFD4. Then to sync your Active Directory data with eDirectory, ZFD shipps with a DirXML driver for Active Directory.

=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
Provogeek
CNE Network+ Experience

Certified nut case

 

[Muerte]

Hi,

have a look at the Preboot Services Toolkit provided by Preworx.

http://www.preworx.com

You can use your Ghost images together with Zen policies!
Great product!

Regards

 

[icecapc]

provogeek,

I am interested in knowing more about the bat file you use for the zcnclite. I am trying to implement Zen Imaging and this is something I would like to know how to do.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Chewie71]

GarryThompson,

If you see this post, I'd like to speak with you about setting up a single ZENworks image that works across all platforms as you referenced in an earlier post. We're having a problem where if it's a different chipset/motherboard, after imaging and restarting, the PC will freeze during the hardware detection phase of SYSPREP. Manually rebooting the PC seems to work and the SYSPREP completes successfully.

Thanks,
Matt

 

[theplus1]

ZFD Imaging Vs. Ghost Enterprise Console?

Has anyone used the Ghost Enterprise Console? If so, how do you feel that it stacks up to ZFD Imaging? So far I haven't seen any mentions of this Ghost setup and I wanted to get some input as we're looking at these two products as Imaging solutions for our organization. I like the control offered in the GEC (schedualed jobs, remote rebooting, etc) but have only used it in a small test environment. ZFD Imaging looks good as it's just a add-on to ZEN (very convienient!)and is so tightly integrated with NAL applications which we use heavily.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

 

[ITsmyfault]

if you're running a netware/eDir network I'm not sure how anything will compete with Zen's integration there. Being able to assign images and apps (add on images) and using rules based installations gives so much flexibility and security without maintaining another directory.. plus the inventory objects are created automagically.
There are workarounds to sched jobs in Zen if that's what you really need.