[Casper] Deploy Studio

[Miles Leacy]

I had a cursory look at it a few months ago.
My first impression is that it's an immature product/project.

I can't download the Architecture document from their site (the link appears
to be broken), but if I recall correctly, DeployStudio is attempting to
deliver features found in Casper, NetRestore and Radmind.

I think it's an admirable effort by the project's creators and contributors,
however, I'll be sticking with Casper for several reasons.

Before Casper, I used Radmind and a collection of my own homebrewed shell
scripts to handle deployment, software distribution, patch management and
general system maintenance.  Tasks using these technologies are not very
duplicatable in junior staff due to the learning curve.  That means I have
to be around all the time.  That's bad.

If one of my scripts or Radmind doesn't work as expected, I have to fix it
with no support, and I can potentially pull my hair out for days trying to
fix it.  With Casper, I pay for support and get excellent response times and
resolution rates.

I know a constructive criticism was recently made on this list about the
Casper documentation, but this project's documentation is downright
skeletal.

It appears that DeployStudio may have some interesting ideas regarding PC
deployment, but I don't manage PCs, and if I ever need to manage BootCamp,
Parallels or VMWare, I can do that through Casper.

If there are any specific compelling features you find in DeployStudio, I'd
be interested to hear about them, and perhaps they can be presented to JAMF
as feature requests.

----------
Miles A. Leacy IV

 Certified System Administrator 10.4
 Certified Technical Coordinator 10.5
 Certified Trainer
Certified Casper Administrator
----------
voice: 1-347-277-7321
miles.leacy at themacadmin.com
www.themacadmin.com




2009/2/4 Thomas Larkin <tlarki at kckps.org>

>  has anyone looked at this?  While I don't see anything it does that
> Casper Doesn't, it does do one really neat thing.   I supports PXE booting.
>  So, you can feasibly have PC clients netboot (or PXE boot as they call it)
> to it and image Windows or Linux to them.  This sounds very interesting for
> mixed client environments.  While, I have not played with it yet, I was
> curious if anyone on the list has used it with Casper or what not.
>
>  I mean if I could also use one server technology to image all of our
> Windows clients, that would be kind of neat.  You could then have one Xserve
> do it all.  Casper does have some, unsupported, but working tools to image
> Windows on a Mac.  I have used them and they do work.
>
>  I have way too much on my plate to even attempt looking at Deploy Studio,
> however, if anyone else has tinkered with it, what are your thoughts?  I was
> thinking if possible down the road I may run Deploy studio on my Xserves in
> each building for netboot and imaging the PCs only, and then keep Casper for
> the Macs.  I really like the auto run data and would not want to give that
> up.
>
>  *http://www.deploystudio.com/Home.html*
>
>  Thoughts?  Experiences?
>
>  Thanks,
>
> ___________________________
> Thomas Larkin
> TIS Department
> KCKPS USD500
> tlarki at kckps.org
> blackberry:  913-449-7589
> office:  913-627-0351
>
>
>
>
>
>
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