Remotely Deploy Apps across a LAN

Mass deployment of applications across a LAN is a laborious task that

deviates time and resources from other crucial tasks. Let's suppose, a new

anti-virus solution needs to be deployed. While doing so, it has to be ensured

that all user machines have been updated. Normally,one would need to visit each

machine individually and install the required anti-virus application. which is a

really laborious task. To help ease out such monotonous and time-consuming

tasks, remote application deployment is the need of the hour. It helps you to

remotely install or uninstall routine applications on user machines silently, ie,

without bothering the user.

There are quite a few remote deployment software available that allow you the

luxury of doing such tasks quite effortlessly. EMCO Remote Deployment kit is one

such software in this domain. Here, we guide you on how to achieve mass

application deployment using this software. It costs around $165 (INR 8250

approx) for 100 nodes. The software can be used to deploy all the routinely used

applications such as Acrobat Reader, WinZip, Real Player, MacAfee, Norton

anti-virus, MSN messenger, etc. In addition, you can build a deployment kit for

your own applications. 

A big advantage of this software is that you don't have to keep the setup

files in the repository. You simply need to install the software on the



deployment machine. Before getting into details, let's build a scenario, so
that you can understand the implementation process easily.

We assume that the organization is using active directory for user

authentication and all the machines are trusted in a domain. Plus, all machines

are using Windows OS.

Step 1: Installation



Take a Windows XP/2000/2003 based machine as your deployment machine. Register
this machine with your domain controller and install EMCO Remote Deployment kit

on it. You can download a 30-day trial version from the link provided. Once you

have installed the software, reboot



the machine. Identify frequently used applications in your organization and
install them on the deployment machine. Here, we installed Acrobat Reader, Real

Player and Norton anti-virus. These are typical applications across workstations

in an organization.

Select the machine where you want to deploy the application from the Machine Tree on the left. Drag it to Machine Queue window on the right

Step 2: Using EMCO 



Launch EMCO Remote Deployment Kit from the deployment machine that you have
created. Its console is divided into two parts. The left panel shows you details

of all the scanned machines across the LAN. The right panel shows remote

deployment jobs in queue. On the same panel, at the bottom, you will find an

Install/Uninstall button, where you need to select the application, for remote

deployment. Now, go to the left panel and click on 'Enumerate LAN.' This

will start the scanning of all machines on your network. You can even scan on

the basis of domain and range of IP addresses. Once you get the list on the left

panel, select the machines and drag and drop them to the right panel. With this,

the EMCO deployment kit is ready to use across the selected group of machines.

Before installing/uninstalling any application on a remote client, you will be shown an application list. The ones with a green dot can be deployed while those with a red can't

Step 3: Application deployment



Now, select the application that you want to deploy on the target machine. In
the right panel, click on 'Install/Uninstall' button. You will get a list of

applications that EMCO can deploy on the target machines, remotely. If you look

carefully, you will find green and red dots in front of application names. The

applications with green dots denote that the application already exists or has

been installed on the deployment machine, and so can be deployed on the remote

machines. Whereas red ones denote that these applications are not installed or

do not exist on the deployment machine, and hence can't be deployed.

Therefore, you can only select applications with green dots.

This window shows a detailed analysis of all remote machines. You can see the number of drives, OS names, protocols, Mac addresses, etc for each machine

After this, click on the Install button. This will start the deployment

process. Once the deployment process is complete, you will get a 'successful

completion report' with a list of changed parameters on the remote machines.

Finally, on the remote machine, check the status of the deployed application.

Note: In windows XP sp2 workstation, you have to add ports in the

exception list of the Windows firewall. Add the ports 136, 139 and 445.