[Casper] Deploy Studio

Thu Feb 5 07:35:47 PST 2009

Hi Miles 

I think the point Thomas was making was imaging PC clients from a Mac
server, ive downloaded the documentation and installed the DS and for
the mac side it is a very basic imaging and packing deployment product,
but FREE for those that cant afford Casper, not that i can say its a
patch on Casper. 

As your the Casper Trainer you might be able ti tell me if you can use
casper from a usb/ external drive without any server/network? As i am
only 6months into using capser. 

DS can support external drives, you can use scripts, install packages
and image computers and theres even a database of known approved
computers to image as well as a live activity monitor. 

On the PC side, it installs a vmlinux pxebooter and alters the dhcp
settings, atm i dont have a PC to test with, but from the forums allows
the PC to pxe boot however it doesn't support all NIC's nor necessarily
new or future PC's 

I would have thought that maybe in the future with EFI that PC's and
windows might start going that way making it easier to preboot them. 

The DS does not make a PC image, its just a pxebooter. 

You also need DHCP on your mac server as well as cifs or nfs support. 

Criss

Criss Myers
Senior Customer Support Analyst (Mac Services)
Apple Certified Technical Coordinator v10.5
LIS Business Support Team
Library 301
University of Central Lancashire
Preston PR1 2HE
Ex 5054
01772 895054

>>> On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at  9:50 PM, in message
<ec2e75ff0902041350k58624731n26266194def6eb4d at mail.gmail.com>, Miles
Leacy <miles.leacy at themacadmin.com> wrote:

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 cliXserve 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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