Office of Information Technology

Workstation Image Managment: Lead - Roger Siggs

Members: Mark, Josh, Roger Bontrager, Susan Bedker, John Kakritz, Bryan Witherspoon, Norm Penalosa, TBD Net Manager

February 16, 2006

The workstation group is still considering different profile issues, and how to address them- including:

Roaming profiles vs redirected folders- and the ability to use both simultaneously.
Needs for varied environments
Lack of support from the end users of some locations (specifically CFL) for non-anonymous user authentication
Potential of using Enterprise IDs for login information, and the ramifications that presents
Softricity

I think the first CTC meeting this afternoon went well, and I didn't perceive any questions with regard to implementation of the product that were unexpected or unanswered.

February 16, 2006

Discussion on scheduling and requirement for regular updates to the Operating System, Anti-Virus and Applications.
After consultation with Cyril and Steve updates to the test network through the WSUS server will occur on a regular ongoing basis, along with updates to the anti-virus software and backups to the relevant servers in the test network
Discussion on the need for a Symantec Anti-Virus server to manage and centralise the administration of anti-virus definitions across the workstations. I (Roger S.) hope to bring a SAV 10.0 server up in the test network soon, preferably with Roger B.'s assistance.
Demonstrated the SoftGrid product to the CTC- response seemed quite good. We currently have approximately 35 applications sequenced. 2 stumbling blocks remain- Macromedia products are slow to load, Diet Analysis plus 7.1 will only run on the 4,0 version of the Softgrid client (current release is 3.2). We have a copy of the 4.0 client, but it 'breaks' compatibility with a few other applications. I am awaiting a response from Jeff Asis with regard to the Macromedia issue, and will update upon receipt.
Application updates for sequenced applications would be handled within SoftGrid.
Requested lists of applications installed on our respective systems for comparison and to minimise overlap in the future image builds. Roger B. has provided his already, and Roger S has his *almost* done. <

Moved Ghostbooster to the PalDream.edu test domain for testing the Ghost Suite and imaging solutions.

February 9, 2006

More updates on a semi-regular basis will be occuring.

I'm currently awaiting responses from my team members with regard to a number of questions and calls for comment I sent them earlier this week. As soon as I receive those, I will update the page to reflect it.

February 6, 2006

Note, I've added Susan Bedker, John Kakritz, Bryan Witherspoon and Norm Penalosa to this 'team'. The goal is to contact those primarily involved with workstation management and image creation so we can maximise our ability to get good information and work done.

For the four of you recently added to this group- you don't have to be certainly, just let me know if you don't want to me involved.

Involved in what? Here's the more or less 'official' mandate we have: This group will design and configure images for standard academic and administrative workstations. This group will also standardize and document the process for distributing the images to one or many computers as well as managing os and application updates and patches.

As you can see, we have two primary functions-

Design and Development of Academic and Administrative Workstations
Design and Development of a standardised imaging process across our entire network.

Each of these is fairly important to the campus as a whole, and we need to *hopefully* produce something useful with these goals. To that end there's a couple of things that I think we can start out with.

Workstation hardware configuration- I'd like us to reach some level of agreement on what configuration we feel would serve as our 'minimum' standards for the upcoming workstations. While some of our design mandate should be hardware non-specific, it would help if we had a baseline from which to work with that we felt was workable. Yes, this is nominally outside of our ability to control, and we may not be able to have any real influence on the decisions made, however I think it will be helpful.
To that end, let's set up a simple list of our minimum requirements. In my mind, I think they can be listed quite simply, without requiring an exceptional level of detail:
CPU- AMD (32bit) 3000+ (or Intel equivalent processor speed) RAM- 512MB minimum, 1024MB preferred HD- 40Gb Video Card supporting 1024x768 (16bit) minimum CD-RW/DVD-ROM on-board sound (personal preference is to shift away from the ac'97 controller) 100Mbit ethernet
Those are the minimums I suggest. Everything else is gravy. Agreements? Complaints? Please send me your responses by Wednesday so that I can collate them into an update for the other Team leads and website.
We need to have a 'sub-group' to work specifically on imaging solutions. For a few years, Iv'e been pushing for a move to using the Ghost Suite for our imaging, both individual and mass re-imaging. Josh mentioned that he was doing something with GhostBooster (although I have forgotten exactly what- sorry Josh). I would propose that Roger B, John K, Josh and Norm be focused on the imaging design, with Josh 'in charge' since he's already working on this particular sub-project. Assuming this meets with no giant objections, I'd like to have a brief update to give the rest of the Team Leads by late Wednesday/early Thursday.

Finally, as most everyone knows, we have a demonstration/testing platform for both a simple Active Directory installation using the single domain model, and a Proof of Concept installation for the Softricity SoftGrid system. As I've written on a couple of lists here, SoftGrid is an application system that virtualises applications for use across the network, while allowing each application to operate within it's own protected registry sandbox- this will prevent the application conflicts and need for significant configuration and customisation we've had to do with Palette and related systems. From all appearances, it is everything the company says it is and more. We will be receiving a copy of the 4.0 version of their Sequencer (the application used to monitor the installation of a new application, study the registry for changes made during that installation, and create the 'Feature Blocks' that allow streaming to work across the network- we currently have their production version, 3.5) this coming week, as well as having Jeff Asis returning to provide some further assistance. We currently have HT2 Pod 5 cordoned off for testing, and I'll be having faculty and administration members examing the software and it's possibilities over the next two weeks. Additionally, at the upcoming CTC meeting (Feb 14th) I will be discussing and demonstrating the SoftGrid system and fielding some of the questions that I'm sure will be asked.

Documentation for Softricity is currently available on my webpage (gecko.gc.maricopa.edu/~rsiggs/work) and additional documents will be made available on monday. The file 'softricitydemo.ppt' is the demo that we originally had demonstrated to us before we began the Proof of Concept. I would highly recommend that everyone read it if they havent' had a chance to yet, it answers a number of questions about the system and how we can integrate it with out existing (and developing) network infrastructure.

Thanks everyone. I know this got longer than I had anticipated. Hopefully we'll be able to get the ball rolling on this project and others sooner rather than later.