Imaging/OS deployment solutions for business

loss4words

Hi Everyone,

So we've been using Ghost until now and are starting to look into other solutions for OS deployment. We're 100% Windows shop with most PCs running Windows 7 and Windows XP (soon to be Windows 7) on an AD domain.

The issue, though, is that System Admin departments is separate from Desktop Support Department (as silly as it may sound) and communications between the two isn't what I had hoped for. Basically the Sys Admins do their own thing (managing the servers and making sure everything is working, backups, etc) while we support users and from time to time ask the Sys Admins for advice. As far as OS deployment goes we're in charge. I guess the reason why I explained this is because I was looking into SCCM but it sounds like you have to have certain access to the servers to be able to do that, which we don't.

I've looked into MDT 2010, but was wondering if there's anything else? The biggest problem I'm running into is that we have a lot of laptops that are being used by the company, but they're not registered with DNS and people can only use provided wi-fi connection to go online. With Ghost, it's pretty easy to create boot disks with static IP addresses and deploy our images that way. Is there software out that could provide similar functionality?

Thank you very much for any help or suggestions.

jmritenour

G4U is okay in as far as it just requires an FTP server, and is pretty much platform agnostic, and can provide the functionality you want. I'm not sure how well it would scale as far as doing multiple systems at once.

forkvoid

My experience in SCCM is limited, but it should be no real issue to have the sysadmins deploy a server for the purpose of SCCM and delegate proper rights to a couple purpose-made accounts. Research the heck out of what's required before you propose it. I had to do this at my old job, due to an extremely highly-segmented IT department, when I wanted to deploy WDS. I managed the server it was going on and the desktops it would support, but had to go through the DHCP guy to get a helper address added for us and the AD guy to delegate authority to the computer account so it could create it's SCP object. This all took about a month of hardcore justification. WELL worth the price to use the proper tools.

qcomer

We currently use GHOST and used FOG along side of it for some time (we got busy though and couldnt find time to work on the FOG server).

I am now looking at WDS and MDT together. I have done a lot of research over the weekend and it seems like it will make things so much easier. Especially once we start moving over to windows 7.

My vote would be WDS and MDT.

hypnotoad

WDS with network boot and AIK has made imaging systems so easy that my boss wants all 450 computers reloaded.

So it backfired on us, in a way.