Deployment services are software-based solutions designed to facilitate the installation and rollout of new applications or infrastructure. They can include procurement of hardware or software, configuration, tuning stage, installation and testing of interoperability.
The benefits of app deployment range from speedy and automated installation, to improved security, simplified management and improved visibility to user activity. App deployment simplifies complex tasks that take a lot of time and are resource intensive, such as software updates.
HP offers a complete set of deployment services that can aid your business in speeding up the process, whether you’re planning to set up new servers or move existing ones. Our deployment services cover everything from delivery of devices and staging, to hardware setup including data migration and installation.
Windows Deployment Service (WDS) – Provides centralized, network-based deployment of operating systems on bare-metal computers. It is the successor to Remote Installation Services (RIS). WDS utilizes disk imaging to install have a peek at this site virtually any operating system.
Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 or later makes use of the Windows Image Format (WIM), for example creating images that can be used for remote installation. A Windows image has an initial boot environment that boots the computer and allows it to install the operating system. The pre-boot environment is modified and extended by the administrator to carry out other tasks, such as installing additional drivers.
To make use of WDS, an environment must be set up to allow a local network or Internet access. The environment must also have a Windows Deployment Services Server role installed on an appropriate server. This includes a DHCP server.
Microsoft offers a variety of tools that can be used for WDS to manage the deployment servers, build, take images, and then apply them. These include imagex, dism and the wdsutil. These tools can be installed on the same server that hosts the WDS server or on a different server. Imagex is a command line tool that can create one WIM or a deduplication structure. It can be used on the network share or mapped drive. The wdsutil tool can be used to manage the WDS server without visual user interface, and also to add images taken from the repository.
Virtual Machines are a type of computer that can be designed to act as client machines when building and testing Windows deployment images. Using virtual machines can reduce the performance of the Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) download phase. This is particularly true in the event that the virtual machine is not capable of handling a full boot loader.
Multiple WDS Servers – These can be used to offer redundancy and fault tolerance. You can use one WDS to manage multiple WIM images, or you can deploy several WDS servers to increase availability and the degree of fault tolerance.
A Windows image can be created using ImageX or a third-party tool, and later distributed via the Internet to other WDS server. The image can then be downloaded to a local server, a remote server or a Hyper-V virtual machine.
Ron’s supervisor gives him the responsibility of deploying the most recent Windows 7 OS at the branches of the company’s fifty offices. He would like to do it remotely, so he does not need to travel to branch offices. However, the company policy stipulates that only one DHCP is allowed on corporate network, and that’s at the Tooth City Office.