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Reduce Time to Deploy OSs

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PCQ Bureau
New Update

System administrators, generally use media or network-based installers to set up and configure new PCs. This is a time-consuming task and requires their presence at the machine to enter the serial number, machine name, and to configure the network settings. 

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Acronis Snap Deploy is a solution that will let you remotely deploy fully configured OSs on multiple bare machines. What it does is it lets you select an already deployed and configured hard disk with an OS and applications, and creates a disk image out of that. This image is then transferred to the target machine over the network. Since there is no 'installation' involved here, the setup is much faster. Acronis Snap Deploy is a commercial software. A 15-day trial version can be downloaded from

http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/.  

Direct Hit!
Applies to: System administrators 
USP: Remotely deploy multiple OSs on multiple machines simultaneously
Primary Link:

http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/  
Google keywords: remote OS deploy disk image

This article describes the various aspects of setting up Snap Deploy and using it in a live environment.

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Requirements and setup 



Using images of hard disk partitions require a lot of hard disk space on the system Snap Deploy is to be deployed on. This system should be running a Windows 2000 or 2003 Server OS and be located on your network; you should have a DHCP server running too. On the client-side you just need a LAN card with a PXE

boot-ROM. 

After downloading the software, you'll get a demo license key, copy it and save for later use. There are five components to install. You need to install the Acronis License Server first and add the license key to it. Once this is done, install the other components in any order you like. 

Configuring PXE Service 



Configure Snap Deploy's Acronis PXE Service to boot target PCs remotely. In order for the PXE Server to work properly, network computers must support

PXE.

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Launch Acronis Snap Deploy Management Console and select the 'Configure Acronis PXE Server' option. A window will pop up, here select 'Configure PXE Server' this will start a wizard. On the second screen of this wizard, you'll see two options: Snap Agent and Master Image Creator. To enable them, select both of them and click on Next. 

Manage all your remote deployments from a single management console

The agent will enable target PCs boot using the PXE boot ROM and start the deployment process. The Master Image 



Creator will allow the Acronis Administrator to create master images of the remote PC and save them to a shared folder on the deployment server. After finishing with the wizard, reboot the server system before continuing. If you don't have a PXE LAN card, then Acronis Snap Deploy Manager lets you create a bootable CD. You can boot the remote machine with this CD,
connect to the Acronis server, and create or deploy an image on that machine. To create a bootable CD, go to the 'Management Console' and click on the 'Create bootable media with Acronis Snap Deploy Agent'. It will open a new window where you select the writable CD media to continue.

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Imaging from a client machine



Since the Acronis software only deals with hard disk images, you can use it to deploy more than just the OS. So you can install and configure all the applications you want to deploy on the target

machines. Let's now create the image of the system.

Boot into the client system using PXE. A graphical menu will appear on the screen, select 'Acronis Master Image Creator'. Using the wizard that starts, select the disk and then the partitions to use, for creating images. 

You can either choose to save the image on the local machine itself (use the partition not selected for imaging) or on a shared folder directly on the Acronis server. 

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You can also use the wizard to split the image file into smaller files by selecting the maximum size of one split file. The 'Automatic'option in the wizard will create a single file. 

Select the compression level of the image file as Normal. After you've created the image, the PC will shutdown automatically.

Create and use templates 



Every system deployed using the created image will have identical settings, including those for its networking. To configure this better and perform additional tasks like creating users, you need to create a deployment template. You can do so from Acronis' Management Console. Select the 'Manage Deployment' link and then 'Create Template' from the task pane; this will start a wizard. 

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For the image file, select the image file created above. Users created using this wizard will automatically be created when that image is deployed to a machine. Similarly, you can define the network settings, computer name, domain or workgroup for this system. 

The wizard also lets you copy files to the system-transfer document templates, important forms. Before the wizard ends, you'll be presented with an option to add more applications to the target system. When done, click on Save. 

Deploying images



To remotely deploy the configured images to the target machines boot the system over the network using

PXE. 

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Select 'Acronis Deployment Agent'. You can leave the system running and move to the deployment server. There, open the Acronis Console and go to 'Deployment Management'. 

The newly booted client will be displayed on the screen. Click on it and select 'Deploy On Target PC' from the task pane. A wizard will start where you can select the client and send it one of the

images that are configured.

In our labs, we used the demo version of Acronis Snap Deploy software to deploy Windows 2000/XP as well as

PCQLinux 2005 onto clean systems. The Windows systems had NTFS file system and the Linux system was configured with EXT2 and EXT3 file systems. 

Note: Compared to other remote deployment solutions like Microsoft's Remote Installation Service and the Automated Deployment Server, Acronis' solution is not only easy to set up and use, but also it can be used with a variety of OSs and applications. 

In six easy steps

  • Install the Acrnois server modules and start the two Acronis services from the Services console
  • On a PC, install the OS and applications and configure them as you require
  • Take a hard disk image of that PC using the Acronis Disk Imager after remote booting
  • On the server, create a template to add further settings, attach this image to the template
  • On a system where you wish to deploy such an image, remote boot, select 'Acronis Deployment'
  • Remote system is installed in a few minutes

Sanjay Majumder

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