4372ch01.fm | Draft Document for Review November 15, 2007 3:27 pm |
Once the installation has been prepared, the system must be booted from the network and connect to the Tivoli Provisioning Manager for OS Deployment server, From here, the installation can be used to create a new profile.
1.7.3 Deploying to multiple systems from a master image
Once the profile is on the Tivoli Provisioning Manager for OS Deployment server and necessary additional adjustments, scripts and drivers have been added, it is ready for deployment to other systems.
Without any further changes, the master image can be used for deployments to systems with same hardware. In order to distribute to systems with other hardware, it may be necessary to inject new drivers. This is done by defining software packages with the drivers and define bindings or rules for which drivers to inject on which systems.
1.7.4 Re-deploying to a specific system to resolve a problem
Normally if a software or hardware related problem occurs, the IT organization will attempt to troubleshoot and fix the problem. This can be a time consuming effort. The retail environment varys significantly from the traditional office environments where PCs are used for administrative tasks. Imagine a small super market or store with three or four cash registers. If one POS station is not available during busy hours, the line of customers could quickly grow, resulting in unhappy customers and eventually loss of business when disgruntled customers leave the store without making their purchases.
For the retail environment, it is therefore imperative that a failed system be brought back into operation as quickly as possible. Tivoli Provisioning Manager for OS Deployment provides several tools to assist in doing this, depending on the particular situation:
If the failure is a local software error, the quickest way to get a system back online is a local redeployment. This feature requires that a copy of the installed image exist in a hidden partition on the hard drive, and that any local dynamic data can be automatically retrieved from a central server after redeployment.
If the failure is the result of a malfunctioning hard drive, and a replacement drive is quickly installed, a new operating system can be deployed from a local Tivoli Provisioning Manager for OS Deployment server within
12Tivoli Provisioning Manager for OS Deployment in a Retail Environment
