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Deploy systems with virtual machine
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Introducing SmartDeploy Enterprise Prowess Consulting, LLC
Published: March, 2010
Abstract Large organizations across all sectors and industries—particularly those organizations with 500 or more
computers—invest a lot of time and money in the deployment of computer operating environments to
keep the workforce productive and the business responsive. IT teams frequently find that they are forced
to continually modify deployment processes to keep up with rapid changes in both hardware and software
technology and to respond to business pressure to reduce costs and improve efficiency. But even with a
properly designed and well‐orchestrated process, the systematic deployment of computer operating
systems can be a frustrating, time‐consuming, technically difficult, and expensive undertaking.
The release of the Windows® 7 operating system and the accompanying “sun setting” of the Windows® XP
operating system require most organizations to reevaluate—if not reinvent—their Windows® deployment
strategy, including their tools, knowledge, and approach. While Windows 7 poses a variety of new
deployment challenges, it also creates an opportunity to streamline and optimize deployment process,
regardless of the migration timeframe.
Prowess SmartDeploy® Enterprise provides a comprehensive, easy‐to‐use deployment toolset that can help
you overcome the challenges associated with operating system migration. SmartDeploy Enterprise makes
it possible to efficiently deploy operating systems—reducing or even eliminating redundancy, wasted time,
unnecessary effort, and superfluous infrastructure. Used alone, integrated into your existing management
environment, or alongside Windows Server® 2008–based management tools like Windows® Deployment
Services (WDS), SmartDeploy Enterprise can help you reduce the risks associated with Windows 7
migration and can help streamline all of your Windows deployment projects. And with a per‐technician
licensing model, you get enterprise capabilities without the enterprise‐scale price tag.
This white paper provides an introduction to SmartDeploy Enterprise. For more information on using
SmartDeploy Enterprise, see the SmartDeploy Enterprise User’s Guide.
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CONTENTS OVERVIEW ............................................................................................................................................ 3
CHALLENGES WITH WINDOWS 7 MIGRATION ........................................................................................ 4
APPLICATION COMPATIBILITY ............................................................................................................................ 4
DRIVERS ........................................................................................................................................................ 4
RIS AND WDS ............................................................................................................................................... 5
INTRODUCING SMARTDEPLOY ............................................................................................................... 7
HOW DOES SMARTDEPLOY WORK? ....................................................................................................... 9
APPLICABLE SCENARIOS .................................................................................................................................. 10
SUMMARY .......................................................................................................................................... 11
MORE INFORMATION .......................................................................................................................... 12
3
OVERVIEW
Migrating to a new operating system is inevitable for many organizations. While Windows® 7
brings many new features and benefits, upgrading operating systems in a large network is no
easy task. Successful operating system migration requires extensive planning and complex
scheduling, and it often forces you to make costly business compromises. The challenges in
upgrading include:
Application Compatibility: You must continue support for existing software applications
that do not run on the new operating system. For example, a custom billing application
written for the Windows Vista® operating system may not work properly on Windows 7.
User Productivity: To remain fully productive, users need to retain their local data and
settings. This can require extraordinary effort from IT staff to inventory each system and
walk users through upgrading their systems one at a time.
Hardware Compatibility: To deploy to heterogeneous hardware platforms, most current
imaging technologies require you to maintain separate images for each combination of
computer model and operating system.
Imaging Requirements: System images are large. Transmitting images to geographically
dispersed locations is resource intensive and time consuming. The process must be
repeated as patches and upgrades are released.
Imaging Complexity: Because imaging technologies are so sophisticated, the IT staff is
required to have specialized knowledge and skills required to operate and maintain the
complex imaging and deployment tools currently on the market.
Operating system deployment usually involves a disk imaging technology that lets you make a
copy of a master hard disk drive and transfer this copy to your computers. This works well as
long as the target hardware is the same as the master computer. However, in reality, a
company’s computers are often a mix of different makes and models. This means that the IT
staff must create a separate master image for each hardware platform on the network, a time‐
consuming and labor‐intensive endeavor.
SmartDeploy® Enterprise from Prowess provides a real‐world solution for this challenge by
eliminating the need to create multiple master images for your different computers.
SmartDeploy helps make deployment of all versions of the Windows® operating system—
including Windows 7—faster and easier.
4
CHALLENGES WITH WINDOWS 7 MIGRATION
Windows 7 poses a variety of challenges to organizations, particularly to those organizations still
using the Windows® XP operating system. These challenges can have costly implications for
deployment.
Application Compatibility While most Windows Vista–compatible applications run on Windows 7, most applications
written for Windows XP do not. While many software vendors have created Windows Vista–
compatible versions of their applications, you may not have the budget or the time to upgrade
the applications you use. Alternately, you may be supporting an application as a legacy
application, required only occasionally.
Line‐of‐business (LOB) applications created and maintained in house are updated on different
schedules driven by business strategy, in contrast to commercial software that is updated on a
schedule based on broad market demand. A variety of strategies ranging from application
virtualization to “XP Mode”–style dual operating system capabilities in Windows 7 provide
options to support Windows XP–based applications.
Additionally, Web applications written for older versions of Windows® Internet Explorer® Web
browser (Windows® Internet Explorer® 6, for example) are often overlooked, but can be equally
problematic. Windows 7 includes Windows® Internet Explorer® 8, and many organizations are
discovering deployment challenges when they attempt to downgrade the version of Internet
Explorer on their system or to virtualize Internet Explorer.
SmartMigrate
SmartDeploy provides an alternative called SmartMigrate, which takes advantage of the license
use rights for the virtualization of Windows XP on Windows 7 through XP Mode. SmartMigrate
converts an existing operating system (Windows XP, for example) into a virtual machine that can
run in Windows® Virtual PC (VPC) on Windows 7.
SmartMigrate not only helps you overcome application compatibility problems, but it also eases
user migration pain and potentially accelerates migration. Using SmartMigrate, you can let users
continue to use their old operating system environment in a virtual machine—complete with
the files, structure, and the “personality” of their computer—while user training and application
migration tasks are completed by the IT staff.
Drivers Although device driver availability is no longer the problem it was around the time that
Windows Vista was released, dealing with device drivers and the other hardware‐related files
5
needed for the optimal function of a system is one of the most time‐consuming and frustrating
tasks for IT workers. Windows 7 includes a wide variety of out‐of‐the‐box device drivers, but
there are still challenges with making boot‐critical devices available for deployment, particularly
with a heterogeneous hardware inventory.
Platform Pack Templates
SmartDeploy significantly reduces device driver frustration and saves hours of locating,
organizing, and testing packages of required device drivers. Prowess has made dozens of
platform pack templates available for download from SmartDeploy.com for most major original
equipment manufacturer (OEM) devices, letting you simply download the complete and correct
template.
For devices not included in the SmartDeploy.com download center, Prowess provides platform
pack creation assistance through product support programs. These single packages, which are
often field tested in production environments, are also de‐duplicated to further increase
efficiency during deployment.
RIS and WDS For many organizations, Remote Installation Services (RIS) was a well understood, convenient,
and cost‐effective method of deployment. RIS has been replaced with Windows® Deployment
Services (WDS) in Windows Server® 2008, and WDS is not as well understood and is considered
by many to be more difficult to use. Like RIS, WDS is included as a component of the Windows
Server® operating system at no additional charge, so it is a convenient and cost‐effective server‐
based deployment solution. While the WDS server service is simple to install, the roll‐out and
configuration and the imaging methodology can be considerably more complex.
WIM Images
RIS images are replaced in WDS with Windows® Imaging Format (WIM) images. WIM images can
be created through a free set of tools offered by Microsoft called the Windows® Automated
Installation Kit (Windows AIK). Windows AIK can be used to automate Windows installations by
capturing Windows images with ImageX, configuring and modifying images using Deployment
Imaging Servicing and Management (DISM), creating Windows PE images, and migrating user
profiles and data with the User State Migration Tool (USMT).
SmartDeploy is the first independent, commercial deployment solution that uses WIM as its
imaging standard. SmartDeploy is also unique because it provides both a COM application
programming interface (API) that encompasses many of the features, functions, and capabilities
contained in the C++ WIMGAPI.dll. It adds new methods, such as the ability to create
differencing (or delta) WIM images and a graphical user interface (UI) to greatly simplify the
creation, modification, distribution, and deployment of WIM based images.
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You can save weeks or even months of effort by using SmartDeploy to adopt WIM‐based
imaging instead of using the complex technical procedures required by the WAIK, letting you
realize a return on your license investment in a matter of days. And because SmartDeploy takes
advantage of the WIM format, it integrates seamlessly with WDS. Prowess has undertaken
additional steps to ensure that SmartDeploy supports the multicast capabilities of WDS.
Using SmartDeploy with WDS is a great way to make the most of the latest deployment
technology while reducing the pain and IT burden associated with adopting a new deployment
technology and updating your deployment infrastructure to be compatible with the latest
standards.
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SmartDeploy helps the largest private university in the U.S. reduce image creation time by 85 percent while simultaneously cutting deployment licensing costs by 50 percent.
INTRODUCING SMARTDEPLOY
SmartDeploy Enterprise is Windows deployment software that helps reduce the cost, time,
complexity, expertise, and level of IT staff effort required to perform operating system
deployment. SmartDeploy reduces the total cost of ownership (TCO) of server and desktop
computers through lower deployment‐related licensing cost, less IT
training and ramp‐up time, reduced IT infrastructure impact, and
faster task execution.
SmartDeploy was designed with the needs of the people who are
performing operating system deployment firmly in mind. SmartDeploy
uses simple wizards and logical packages that organize and
orchestrate the deployment process for IT generalists who don’t have
the time to learn a more complicated toolset. For the deployment
specialist, SmartDeploy includes COM APIs, letting deployment‐savvy
IT professionals programmatically extend the functionality of
SmartDeploy, integrate it into management solutions, and thoroughly automate deployment
processes for low‐touch and remote or unattended deployment scenarios.
SmartDeploy has best practices built in to consolidated image capture and deployment
environments, making it simple to understand and easy to use right from the first deployment.
The imaging format consolidates multiple images into a single file that uses file‐based de‐
duplication to reduce storage size. Image size reduction attributed to single instance storage of
files is often as much as 80 percent or even higher, ending the runaway storage problems and
confusing image management of other deployment solutions.
SmartDeploy includes an intelligent hardware/platform independence solution called the
Platform Manager that helps dramatically reduce deployment‐related IT overhead. A built‐in
component of the SmartDeploy Enterprise suite, the Platform Manager logically and physically
separates and organizes device drivers and other platform‐related executable files through
platform packs.
8
SmartDeploy was built for maximum efficiency in every aspect of deployment: Control cost through a per‐technician licensing model.
Eliminate the need for extra hardware through a simple image creation process performed in a VM on the technician’s workstation.
Reduce impact on infrastructure (storage and network bandwidth) with images created in a simple wizard that stores data in a single, consolidated, de‐duplicated file.
Use your existing management infrastructure or deployment solution; SmartDeploy‐created images integrate seamlessly and support multi‐casting in WDS.
Offload effort from IT staff; the simple wizard can be used by a knowledge worker or automated through a script.
Reduce time and expense of image updates with simple image maintenance in readily available VM‐based reference environments and efficient differencing images.
SmartDeploy can transform deployment processes from an arduous, errorprone, dreaded undertaking to a simple, elegant project performed faster, by fewer people, with less hardware.
Using platform packs in conjunction with SmartDeploy images lets you address a diverse
hardware inventory consisting of multiple generations of hardware and virtualization platforms
from different manufacturers—all with a single
software system image that delivers the proper
device drivers only at deployment time. With the
Platform Manager and platform packs, you never
have to touch a system image to address hardware
or platform related requirements; this further
reduces image sprawl and storage and network
impacts during deployment and saves hours of
effort to create compatible images.
SmartDeploy is compatible with all Windows client
and server operating systems from Windows® 2000
through Windows 7 and Windows Server® 2008 R2.
The same consolidated environments and efficient
image format can accommodate multiple
generations of operating systems and hardware
throughout your organization without special add‐
ons, workarounds, or extra licensing costs.
SmartDeploy is licensed per technician—the people
who create and manage images and platform packs,
not the devices being managed, need to be
licensed. Once properly licensed, the images can be
rolled out to an unlimited number of computers
automatically or installed quickly and reliably at the
endpoint by unlicensed, non‐technical knowledge
workers through a deployment wizard.
Whether you need to improve an existing
deployment system, you are tackling new Windows 7 deployments, or you are addressing
complex migration scenarios, SmartDeploy can save you time and frustration and reduce the
impact of deployment on your IT infrastructure.
9
HOW DOES SMARTDEPLOY WORK?
In the simplest terms, SmartDeploy follows a basic five‐step process, as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1 How SmartDeploy works
1. Install SmartDeploy Enterprise.
2. Build the master installation.
3. Capture an image.
The SmartDeploy Enterprise approach uses a single environment for building a
reference system—a virtual machine (VM) running on the IT worker’s local workstation.
You can then add a SmartDeploy Platform Manager to isolate hardware data from the
image.
4. Create or add a preconfigured platform pack.
5. Deploy an image.
SmartDeploy Enterprise lets you to deploy to physical and virtual machines. It also
supports wizard‐driven, zero‐touch deployment via the Windows® Preinstallation
Environment (WinPE). During deployment, SmartDeploy Enterprise lets you prepare
partitions, and, if desired, migrate the existing contents of the physical target system
into a virtual machine, which is automatically present on the desktop of the new
operating system after deployment.
SmartDeploy Enterprise also lets you update existing images. SmartDeploy makes it possible to
easily and quickly create differencing delta files that contain only the changes to an existing
image. For example, a single delta file may contain the latest patches, security updates, and
definition files relating to an existing image. Using this approach, you can regularly distribute the
small delta files to your endpoints to keep your images up to date.
10
Applicable Scenarios SmartDeploy, used with WDS, can help you address the following deployment scenarios:
New Windows XP deployments
New Windows 7 deployments
New deployments of Windows Server® 2003
New deployments of Windows Server® 2003 R2
Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 new deployments
Windows 7 migration
Windows Server 2008 migration
Virtual‐to‐physical (V2P) migration (all supported operating systems)
Physical‐to‐virtual (P2V) migration (limited support for operating systems)
11
Key features of SmartDeploy Enterprise:
Retains legacy applications seamlessly in a VM that runs on the new desktop.
Retains user settings and data either in a protected folder or in a VM that can be run from the desktop.
Isolates hardware platform data from the system image. Images are deployed to each target using platform packs to insert drivers in WinPE. A different Windows Vista image is not required for each hardware platform.
After the Windows Vista master image is distributed, it can be easily updated far into the future with small delta images replicated over the network.
SUMMARY
By using SmartDeploy Enterprise, organizations can now deploy
almost all versions of the Windows operating system—including
Windows 7— quickly and easily without having to make expensive,
time‐consuming compromises. There is no need to delay migration
or implement a protracted, phased approach to accommodate
legacy applications and specific user scenarios. There is also no
need to acquire specialized IT skills in imaging and deployment.
Migration can be achieved more quickly and easily than with
previous tools and guidance.
The SmartDeploy imaging format significantly reduces storage size
through image consolidation and de‐duplication, reducing
infrastructure impact of deployment, and makes more frequent
image updates possible through lightweight distribution of
differencing delta images.
Hardware independence is built in to SmartDeploy. The intelligent
Platform Manager organizes drivers into simple platform packs,
which consolidate and de‐duplicate drivers and other hardware‐
related files. With dozens of platform pack templates for most
major manufacturers provided through the SmartDeploy.com Web
site and professional assistance through product support, accurate
deployment of Windows operating systems has been reduced to a
simple download.
SmartDeploy helps demystify complex deployment solutions like WDS. SmartDeploy addresses
all of the imaging tasks for WDS and provides a simple wizard for users to self‐install Windows.
With multicast capability built in, SmartDeploy integrates seamlessly with WDS, making the path
to a Windows 7–supported solution faster, easier, and less expensive.
12
MORE INFORMATION
The following links provide further information:
SmartDeploy Enterprise User’s Guide
Windows Deployment Services Getting Started Guide
Prowess SmartDeploy Home Page
DeployCentral Forum