IBM REDP-4372-00 manual 4372ch01.fm

Draft Document for Review November 15, 2007 3:27 pm 4372ch01.fm

In 2006, IBM purchased a Swiss company called Rembo Technology SaRL. With this, IBM also acquired the Rembo software products to fill in this gap; Rembo Toolkit and Rembo Auto-Deploy.

The Rembo Toolkit was added to Tivoli Provisioning Manager v5.1 to provide native image management. The Rembo Auto-Deploy product was rebranded to Tivoli Provisioning Manager for OS Deployment.

Tivoli Provisioning Manager for OS Deployment is a software product that provides image management. It captures images of systems which have been prepared for mass-distribution, provides various ways of customizing and adjusting these images and provides a mechanism for distributing them to multiple systems.

During the distribution of an image, Tivoli Provisioning Manager for OS Deployment can identify the target system and automatically inject drivers that fits the particular system. A captured image can therefore be used for distribution to different hardware platforms. These processes are described in Figure 1-2 on page 8, which also clarifies some of the definitions used throughout the book:

￿Unattended profile

Profile is the term used for an element containing an operating system that can be deployed. An unattended profile means the operating system is based on the original installation files and the deployment will perform a true installation, going through all the steps a normal installation would, but using a script to automate all or most of the process.

￿Cloning profile

A profile is the term used for an element containing an operating system that can be deployed. A cloning profile means the operating system is based on an already installed system that has been prepared for mass distributions (cloning). For performance reasons this is the most often used method for mass distributions.

￿Software Package

This must not be confused with software packages as defined in other software distribution products such as IBM Tivoli Configuration Manager. In Tivoli Provisioning Manager for OS Deployment a software package can only be deployed as part of the deployment of an operating system in either an unattended or a cloning profile. A software package typically contains additional device drivers or files that need to be copied to the target, optionally executing a batch script or an executable file as part of it. Software packages can also be used to run unattended installations using MSI software packages.

￿Deployment Schemes

Chapter 1. Introduction 7