Windows 7 Deployment Tools C Ont Ents the Question for IT Isn’T Whether You Should Make the Jump To

Feb. 22, 2010

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Windows 7 Deployment Tools C ont ents The question for IT isn’t whether you should make the jump to

2 Rolling Review Wrapup Windows 7, but when. We tested Windows 7 deployment and Windows 7 Done Right client management products from Acronis, Avocent, Kace and 6 Acronis Deploys Win 7 Well Microsoft to help you find the best tools to migrate and manage 7 The Kace KBOX Rocks for Windows 7 Deployment the latest Windows OS. 9 Microsoft Has Inside Track for Win 7 Deployment By Randy George 11 LANDesk Leads for Large Enterprises 15 Rolling Review Kickoff: Ready To Roll Out Windows 7? Windows 7 Deployment Tools

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Feb. 22, 2010 Rolling Review Wrap-Up: Windows 7 Done Right Deploying a new operating system across a company is a bit like conducting an orchestra: You need the proper instruments in place, and your timing and execution must be right to evoke harmony. Get it wrong and all you get is noise. So for all those would-be maestros of Windows 7, now is the time to take a close look at OS deployment software, which we have tested in our rolling review.

Our review focuses on fat client deployment, so we tested products that provide the deployment, migration, and post-deployment management tools necessary to accomplish the task. The jump to Windows 7 from Windows XP, which is what most companies are contemplating, is a rip-and-replace upgrade, so user state migration was a key feature we examined.

We tested products from Acronis, Kace, Microsoft, and Avocent. We invited Symantec/Altiris, which was willing to participate, but its product was still in a pre-beta version for Windows 7 deployment and unable to meet our deadline for this rolling review. We also invited Novell for its ZenWorks product, but our publishing schedule didn’t allow enough time to get the software into our labs.

We also tested XP7, a product from a company called Zinstall. Instead of migrating user appli-

y . s o REAL-WORLD ANALYST ASSESSMENT i l g t i r k n p f e n s e e o e n g e r c X c D o a D c a O C o p n v A K B N UNACCEPTABLE IDEAL a S a A K A n M M L S Short List Editor’s Choice + Best Value $$+$

Ease of Win7 OS deployment User state migration N/A Task sequencer and debugging N/A Post install client management N/A Reporting features N/A

Bottom Line: The Kace KBOX 2000 appliance gets Editor’s Choice.OS deployment is as simple as turning a key, and it’s a good value at $4,999.Microsoft’s System Center Configuration Manager and Avocent’s LANDesk are our top choices for large organizations that have comprehensive client management needs after Windows 7 deployment.Configuration Manager is the most efficient at OS deployment and user state migration.LANDesk is best for heterogeneous environments.We also looked at Zinstall XP7, which lets users run both XP and Windows 7 on the same computer.It’s a good product but didn’t meet our criteria as a migration platform.

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cations, files and preferences from XP to Windows 7, Zinstall installs Windows 7 while also preserving XP on the same machine. Users can toggle between XP and Windows 7. The software works well and is useful for organizations that aren’t ready to let go of XP, but it doesn’t meet our definition of a full-fledged migration and management product, so we didn’t include it in this wrap-up.

Acronis Snap Deploy 3.0 provides a quick option for Windows 7 deployment. Installation was easy because all the server components came packaged in a small executable. Snap Deploy includes a PXE server with a Linux bootloader and Universal IP packet driver, which made it simple to get clients to the pre-boot environment over the network. Within the pre-boot environment, you can connect to the OS deployment server for image cloning and multicasting operations. Acronis offers some functionality to inject hardware drivers into the image, so Snap Deploy met one of our requirements for being able to deploy a single master image to multiple flavors of client hardware. On the whole, Snap Deploy is a good imaging tool, but desktop administrators will have to rope in several other tools to orchestrate the entire upgrade process, and the product offers no client management capabilities. As a result, Snap Deploy is only suit- able for the smallest and simplest of deployment scenarios.

The Kace KBOX is a series of appliances instead of software. Kace, which is being acquired by Dell, offers the KBOX 1000 for client management and the KBOX 2000 for OS deployment. You can use each appliance independently or link them together. Of all the deployment products we tested, the KBOX 2000 was easiest to get up and running because the appliance takes all of the guesswork out of implementing the product.

The KBOX 2000 proved extremely versatile in the labs. With plenty of storage available, the appliance can store and serve out all of the OS images you’d ever need to deploy directly from its internal disk. We accessed a user interface for capturing user profiles from machines we prepped for upgrade by uploading Microsoft’s User State Migration Tool to the KBOX. The appliance did a great job extracting user profile data from our test clients.

However, it doesn’t let you pick and choose individual items within the profile for upload, so we were forced to capture everything. By contrast, Microsoft’s System Center Configuration Manager and Avocent’s LANDesk provide the ability to capture individual files, folders, or preferences from the user profile.

The KBOX lets you reuse complex scripts you may have designed during previous OS deploy-

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ments. Scripts can be uploaded and stored for use as pre- or post-OS deployment install tasks, and you can build complex OS deployment scenarios by dragging and dropping script objects into a deployment job. The result is a fairly robust, object-oriented approach to OS deployment. This is a powerful tool, because enterprises can use a single image while building a library of customizations that can be attached to an OS image ad hoc.

The only area where the KBOX 2000 comes up short is error control. When a particular component of an install task failed or didn’t work, the cause wasn’t immediately obvious, and we’d pre- fer not to have to spend time fishing around to find the reason. On the whole, however, we are very pleased with KBOX as a deployment product.

On the client management front, the KBOX 1000 meets most needs. It has solid inventory and remote management features, though no software distribution or auditing features. We found a hidden gem in the KBOX 1000’s remote recovery console, which lets you remotely control a PC even if its OS is corrupted. That’s a help desk dream come true. That said, on the client management side, the KBOX 1000 was handily beat by System Center Configuration Manager and LANDesk.

ONES THAT DO IT ALL Where Kace leaves off, Microsoft’s System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) jumps in. Much like LANDesk, Configuration Manager does it all. The full feature set means you’ll have to spend some prep time, both for deployment and learning the ins and outs of the product. SCCM has several different server roles and requires a back-end SQL server in large installations, but in small environments you can get away with a single server for the all of the server roles. SCCM is a top-notch product for OS deployment and user state migration. While not as easy to use as the KBOX, Configuration Manager had a more functional task scheduler, and its error reporting and debugging tools are superior. Believe us, if you’re deploying Windows 7 in any sort of automated fashion, you’re going to do some debugging.

No vendor in our roundup beat SCCM’s user state migration capabilities. The other players must back up and restore a user profile. SCCM R2 uses a concept called user state hard linking, whereby a Windows 7 image can be overlaid on the existing XP/Vista profile. The result is a much faster deployment. SCCM is complex and comprehensive, so it took some time in the labs to perfect our upgrade process, but once it was complete, we were quite happy with the results.

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Out of the box, SCCM includes all of the remote management, client inventory, and software distribution capabilities any Microsoft shop would need. Our only gripe is that you can’t natively manage heterogeneous environments, so you’re out of luck if you run MacOS, Solaris, or other flavors of Linux. Third-party partners such as Quest offer SCCM extensions that can be used to manage other operating systems, but it would be nice not to have to pony up for additional software. The same limitations apply on the deployment side—it’s Windows only. By contrast, both Kace KBOX and LANDesk can deploy MacOS and various Linux flavors.

Avocent LANDesk was the last player in our lineup, and it impressed every bit as much as SCCM. LANDesk provides the widest range of options for OS deployment. The other products in our lineup require you to create and deploy system images using their image formats. With LANDesk, you have several options. For instance, if you’ve sunk lots of time and effort into creating Symantec Ghost images, LANDesk lets you use them as a foundation for your Win7 roll- out. If PowerQuest DeployCenter is your image of choice, you can use that or LANDesk’s own image format, or you can use ImageX to deploy a Windows Imaging Format (WIM) image.

LANDesk’s User Migration Assistant (UMA) also impressed us. It did the best job at exposing even the most superficial user profile customizations within the management UI. It also gave us the most control over the user state migration process.

While LANDesk didn’t necessarily deploy Window 7 in a way that we could describe as better than the other players, it can deploy and manage the widest range of operating systems. While that distinction is out of the scope of this rolling review, it may be relevant for shops that need tools for deployment and management in a diverse environment.

BETTER GET READY One day in the future, your colleagues may access virtual desktops served from a cloud and pre- sented as a three-dimensional image made of nanoparticles that are projected by a smart pad. This will probably happen around the same time that they drive their flying cars to the office. Until that day arrives, you’re going to have to live through at least one more fat-client upgrade. Mainstream support for Windows XP Pro is over, and mainstream support for Vista Business runs out in 2012. The upshot? Windows 7 is coming to your organization. The right deployment tool can make an upgrade less painful, and a sound client management platform will make the new OS easier to live with over the long term. As you build your short list, you should talk to vendors and peers, get gear in your lab for a test run, and use this rolling review as your sheet music. With the right tools, you can you can turn a Windows 7 deployment into beautiful music.

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Nov. 23, 2009 Acronis Deploys Win 7 Well

Acronis’ Snap Deploy 3.0 client imaging system is first to bat in our InformationWeek review of Windows 7 deployment software. Acronis focuses only on client imaging and deployment. If you’re shopping for a full enterprise desktop management suite, look elsewhere. However, for organizations that simply want to deploy Windows 7 now, Snap Deploy 3.0 makes quick work of it.

Snap Deploy 3.0 installs easily. All client and server components are compressed into a laugh- ably small 120- MB executable. A typical Snap Deploy setup includes a management console, a licensing server, an OS deployment server, and a PXE server. While these server roles can be separated for scalability, smaller environments can easily get away with installing all roles on one server, or even within one VM.

One gotcha we discovered during installation was the need to purchase an add-on license to deploy an image to machines with different hardware specs. While annoying, the incremental $12.50 per-universal-client upgrade seemed like a reasonable charge on top of the base $25 per standard client license. ourtake WALK WITH THE WIZARD ACRONIS SNAP DEPLOY 3.0 Creation of a master image couldn’t have been easier. A wizard-driven menu walks you through the process of creating >> Snap Deploy makes deploying a a bootable ISO image that can be burned to CD/DVD, Windows 7 image delightfully simple. removable media, or floppy disk. The bootable image is a >> The PXE server included with Snap Linux-driven boot loader with a universal IP packet driver. Deploy gives IT additional options for After bootup, a client simply connects to the deployment multicasting an image out to the server and waits for the administrator to kick off a unicast or multicast image deployment. masses. >> Snap Deploy won’t meet your client Note that you must image both the system partition and the management needs, but it gets good 100-MB boot partition that Snap Deploy creates, otherwise marks for imaging and deployment. your target machine won’t boot without going through an

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OS repair. Once we realized this, we deployed Win 7 to five machines in 10 minutes flat.

One thing we like about Snap Deploy is that you can insert hardware drivers unique to target systems directly into the imaging process. As a result, you generally won’t have to deal with issues like blue screens of death when pushing images to varied hardware—always a plus. Another useful feature of Snap Deploy is the PXE server that’s included with the product. We generally had no problems booting our various test machines to the Acronis console for mass imaging via the network. The only issue we ran into was an older laptop that didn’t support PXE boot.

However, as mentioned, Acronis will only deploy Windows 7. It can’t help you manage the OS. All of the remaining players in this Rolling Review bring full deployment and management suites to the table, so if you’re in the market for something beyond deployment, stay tuned for more options.

Feb. 11, 2010 The Kace KBOX Rocks For Windows 7 Deployment

In a market full of software products, Kace immediately distinguishes itself in the OS deployment and client management space with its appliance. Of course, an appliance is just a cin- derblock unless it delivers useful features and functions, so we put it to the test as part of our Windows 7 deployment rolling review. Kace sent in both the 1000 and 2000 series appliances for review, and to get the entire scope of features and functionality that Kace offers, you need both. The KBOX 1000 series focuses on client management, including client inventory, software distribution, app virtualization, remote control, rudimentary NAC, and a Web-enabled help desk, among other things.

The KBOX 2000 series appliance is where most of the OS deployment magic happens. Features such as OS installation, disk imaging, user state migration (from XP/Vista to Windows 7), and system recovery are all contained within the box. If your overriding con- cern is client management, you can get all you need out of the KBOX 1000. Similarly, if OS deployment is all you care about, then the KBOX 2000 will fit the bill. Kace recommends you purchase both appliances so you can manage your clients after OS deployment—of course it would—but it’s not mandatory.

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Because this rolling review is about Win7 deployment, we went right to work on the KBOX 2000. One of the first things we appreciated about the KBOX 2000 was its ability swallow up all of the OS images we work with. Our KBOX 2000 came with two 250 GB SATA drives configured in a RAID-1 set, so with around 232 GB of usable space available, we had plenty of room to upload custom images as well as every flavor of Windows 7 and Windows 2008 Server. While outside the scope of our testing, the KBOX also supports the deployment of various flavors of Linux as well as Mac OS.

With the KBOX, you can capture and deploy OS images client side or KBOX side. To test client- side image capture, we first configured our DHCP server to PXE boot the KBOX Pre-Installation Environment (KPE). If you’re a Mac shop, KBOX also supports the Netboot protocol. The pre- install environment was simple to use and quickly pulled an image of our base Win7 build. On the KBOX side, when a particular PC has been inventoried by the KBOX, it can also be configured to boot the KPE during the next reboot.

One of the more powerful features of the KBOX 2000 is its pre- and post-installation scripting environment. If you’re deploying a large number of servers, administrators can do things such as define, create, and configure a RAID set, or tweak the BIOS, all before the ourtake actual OS deployment begins. On the desktop side, you can partition disks, the BIOS, or check for minimum hard- KACE KBOX ware requirements, among other things, before the OS >> Kace’s appliance turbo-boosted our image is allowed to proceed. Post image, you can apply Win 7 deployment efforts in the Infor- any user-defined or KBOX-supplied task you wish. Out of mationWeek Labs. the box, the KBOX includes post-installation tasks like automatically joining a domain post install, or deploying a >> With separate appliances for OS de- captured XP/Vistas user state to a Win7 image, among ployment and client management, IT other things. can pick which appliance suits their needs, or combine both for the full Perhaps the most impressive feature of the KBOX was range of features and functionality. the pre-boot system recovery console. There’s nothing too exciting about a pre-boot system recovery tool in >> The KBOX’s ease of use and feature and of itself, but being able to access that environment set make it as an early front-runner in remotely over a VNC connection is cool. (VNC is a our Rolling Review of Windows 7 de- platform-independent remote control program. Kace ployment products. uses a Java VNC to let administrators access a corrupt-

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ed PC remotely.) The remote recovery console allows you to tweak the registry, extract data, work in a command prompt, and so on.

On the whole, we couldn’t find much about the KBOX 2000 we didn’t like. The one minor drawback we found is that building installation tasks aren’t wizard-driven. This means you’ll have to do the heavy lifting of writing scripts for complex tasks. To be fair, scripting complex tasks with any solution requires effort, and Kace provides most of the scripts you’d need to deploy Windows 7 from day one. The Kace KBOX 2000 Systems Deployment Appliance starts at $4,900, and the KBOX 1000 Systems Management Appliance starts at $9,900.

Feb. 22, 2010 Microsoft Has Inside Track for Win7 Deployment

In the next edition of our rolling review of Windows 7 deployment solutions, we test a product that has the inside track on Windows 7: Microsoft’s System Center Configuration Manager (SSCM).

The product was relatively easy to deploy because Microsoft delivered Configuration Manager to us inside a pre-built virtual machine (Hyper-V, of course). Normally, the product is delivered as a traditional software package. Smaller and medium-sized IT shops can run Configuration Manager 2007 SP2 on single server. Large organizations with thousands or tens of thousands of clients should run a separate management server and a database server (SQL Server, of course). While Microsoft recommends Windows Server 2008 for SCCM, Windows Server 2003 supports all of the various CM server roles.

If you haven’t used Configuration Manager before, prepare yourself for a significant learning curve. This product has lots of functionality, and you could probably make a career out of learning the ins and outs of this application. But if you can stay the course, you’ll be impressed with what you can do with Configuration Manager.

Similar to the Kace KBOX, SCCM gives you the option of building either a scripted, unattend- ed upgrade job or an image-based deployment. SCCM uses the Windows Imaging Format (WIM) to create system images. These images can be manipulated with ImageX, a tool made

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available in the Windows Automated Installation Toolkit. ImageX is a command-line tool for imaging drives, but Configuration Manager does a good job at wrapping a user interface around it to automate the heavy lifting.

A client OS deployment is difficult to automate because it involves many discrete steps. That’s why you need a well-designed, automated task manager to handle the job. Configuration Manager has a robust task manager—perhaps the best we’ve seen in this rolling review. While the Kace KBOX Task Manager is slightly more user friendly with its Web-enabled, drag-and-drop interface, Configuration Manager’s error reporting helped us diagnose issues much more effectively as we started structuring the individual tasks necessary to upgrade our test clients from XP to Win7.

Migrating user data and preferences from XP/Vista to Win7 is perhaps the most challenging task related to the OS upgrade because of the innumerable ways users can customize a computer’s features and settings. Configuration Manager SP2 offers an efficient solution to this problem: user- state hard linking. Unlike other products, Configuration Manager never has to pull a user profile off the endpoint client machine. Instead, the Windows 7 deployment actually wraps around the sectors on the disk where the user profile is stored. As a result, Windows 7 is actually overlaid on top of the existing user profiles and automatically inherits whatever settings users put in place in XP or Vista. This means your desktop administrators don’t have to pull user profiles from the old OS, store them, and then replace them onto the new OS after the ourtake installation. Skipping this step saves a significant amount of time in the upgrade process. On the down- MICROSOFT SYSTEM CENTER side, user-state hard linking can be a little scary CONFIGURATION MANAGER because if something goes wrong during the migration, >> Configuration Manager newbies are you may lose all of the user’s data. However, we didn’t in for a steep learning curve, but it’s experience any problems with our test clients. worth it.

Configuration Manager is geared toward very large enter- >> Of the products tested, Configura- prises, and as a result, you’ll find some modules and hid- tion Manager is most efficient at OS den gems in the box that other products don’t have. deployment and user state migration. Seamless integration with Microsoft’s Application >> The product’s task scheduler, error Compatibility Toolkit is one such example; organizations reporting and debugging tools rise concerned with application compatibility can run their application portfolios through the ACT to find out how above the pack.

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seamless (or not) the Windows 7 transition will be. SCCM really shines in post deployment, thanks to modules like asset management, software distribution and metering, mobile device management, and NAP integration. All these components make Configuration Manager a more feature-rich client management solution than products we tested from Acronis and Kace KBOX.

Configuration Manager has excellent policy management and reporting capabilities. Policies can be tied to “collections” within a SCCM site, and collections can be married to various Active Directory or WMI attributes or objects, such as a user object, a group organizational unit, or a CPU type. As a result, you can target software upgrades and patch updates intelligently, with full visibility into any hardware dependencies that might exist for a given software update to succeed.

According to Microsoft, SCCM R3 will include a new power management module, which will let admins enforce and report on power usage policy. You’ll be able to do things like measure how much it costs your organization when users leave PCs on overnight. You’ll be able to see how much money could save by enforcing a hibernation policy after 60 minutes of system inactivity, and so on .

Configuration Manager’s wide range of options is ideal for large organizations that have thousands of clients to upgrade and manage. On the downside, it’s not as easy to use as other products for deployments, but if you want both deployment and ongoing client management, System Center Configuration Manager belongs on your shortlist. The base price for Configuration Manager R2 is $579, or $1,321 for Configuration Manager with SQL Server. Client licenses for each managed PC range from $41 to $430 depending on features.

Feb 22, 2010 LANDesk Leads For Large Enterprises

Last up in our rolling review of Windows 7 deployment solutions is Avocent’s LANDesk Management Suite 9. Installation of LANDesk was relatively painless. The core management server, along with the database and Web management engine, can all be installed on a single box. LANDesk supports SQL Server 2005, 2008, and Oracle versions 10 and 11g for the back-end database. If you have fewer than 1,000 clients under management, you can get away with using SQL Express. As you scale beyond 3,000 clients, LANDesk strongly recom-

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mends you split the core management and database servers for maximum performance.

LANDesk offers a range of OS deployment options, including the use of a client agent or PXE boot. In addition, you can build hardware-agnostic system images. As was the case with Kace and Microsoft, LANDesk enables you to attach specific device drivers to an image during the imaging process as needed. LANDesk provides plenty of functionality for collecting and organ- izing a large-scale driver library.

LANDesk has a leg up on the competition in its support for several system imaging formats. Microsoft Configuration Manager uses the Windows Imaging Format (WIM), and Kace KBOX uses its “K-Image” format. While both are good because they are file-based and easily editable, that doesn’t help you if you’ve invested time and effort in maintaining another image format, such as Symantec Ghost. LANDesk can deploy images using Ghost, PowerQuest DeployCenter, LANDesk’s own imaging tool, or ImageX. We had no problem deploying a Ghost image we had on hand.

While OS deployment is one priority for this review, the other is user state migration—and it’s no small challenge. While each product in our roundup does it a bit differently, LANDesk’s approach is definitely at or near the top. LANDesk’s User Migration Assistant (UMA) can be run as part of a capture and restore script, which can be attached to an image ourtake deployment, or it can be run independently. AVOCENT LANDESK

LANDesk’s UMA lets IT select individual components of a >> LANDesk’s range of OS support user profile for backup/restore operations. Organizations makes it the most diverse client that only care about a certain component of the user profile, management solution we tested. such as the My Documents folder, can extract just that data for restore. In fact, you can dig down to individual shell, >> OS imaging and user state application, and network settings configured within the user migration support rank at the top profile, and migrate just those customizations. For example, for flexibility of deployment options. you can extract sound options that a user configured for >> Small IT shops may want to steer specific Windows events, or a user’s customized wallpaper. clear, but for large heterogeneous This gives IT a tremendous amount of power in how Win7 environments, LANDesk might be your looks and feels when it’s delivered to the end user. best option.

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The other products in the roundup don’t offer the same granularity of migration support, but that’s not to say that LANDesk’s approach is best. For example, Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager can actually burn an OS image directly on top of an XP/Vista user profile. As a result, you don’t need to capture the user profile at all, which saves lots of migration time and storage.

LANDesk supports the most OS clients of any player in our roundup: MacOS, various Linux flavors, HPUX, and Solaris. And from an inventory management, software distribution, remote management, and software auditing perspective, LANDesk has every bit of functionality that Microsoft Configuration Manager has—and then some. We basically like LANDesk. For organizations with thousands of endpoints in a heterogeneous environments, it might be your best option. LANDesk Management Suite 9 costs $92 per node.

Oct . 5, 2009 Rolling Review Kickoff: Ready To Roll Out Windows 7?

The conventional wisdom is to never deploy a new operating system before the first service pack. But that thinking might be misguided with Windows 7, which is scheduled for release on Oct. 22.

First, Windows 7 shares much of Vista’s core code base, and that code has been improved and enhanced during Vista’s troubled tenure. This means the new OS will look and feel more like what Vista should have been from the get-go. Second, Microsoft is combating the “wait until SP1” notion by maintaining its position in regard to Windows XP, which has passed from mainstream support to the purgatory of extended support. What does that mean? You’ll only get critical security-related updates for XP.

Your first thought might be, “So what?” And depending on the complexity of your environment and the resources available, that may be an appropriate response. Deferring an upgrade for as long as possible will save cash in the short term and make your Windows XP ROI numbers look great. Companies with a significant number of Vista systems have a complicated decision process as well.

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But consider the pitfalls of waiting. For Vista systems, the next service pack will largely dictate strategy. But how much driver support will you get on XP for new hardware devices, particu- larly as PC refresh cycles bring new machines into the organization? Then there’s application support. Eventually, developers will stop ensuring the newest Web and on-premises apps work with XP.

Our take is that, for most IT shops, now is the time to plan XP’s funeral. To that end, we’re launching a Rolling Review of Windows 7 deployment and management software. We’ve built a lab with a wide variety of client machines distributed across four sites, all connected by MPLS T1 links. All back-end servers and systems will reside on the corporate network at the hub, with clients evenly distributed among spoke sites connected across a WAN.

Our review will focus on a standard OS deployment, meaning we won’t look at rolling out Windows 7 in a virtual desktop environment.

The goal of this Rolling Review is simple: Simulate how easy, or painful, it will be to upgrade client systems to Windows 7 in a distributed environment. Each deployment software product will handle a multitude of deployment scenarios, including the ability to preserve existing user profiles as efficiently as possible and retrofit them to a Windows 7 master image. We’ll test the

IMPACT ASSESSMENT WINDOWS 7 DEPLOYMENT AND MANAGEMENT SUITES ᭹ BENEFIT ᭹ RISK

IT organization ᭹᭹᭹᭹᭺ | Trying to deploy any new OS on a ᭹᭹᭹᭺᭺ | A comprehensive client manage- large—or even medium—scale without the proper tools ment system requires resources to purchase and is asking for trouble. A capable client management suite operate.However, it’s a far bigger risk to undertake a is a must for IT groups embarking on the Win 7 journey. move from XP to Win 7 without one.

Business ᭹᭹᭹᭹᭺ | A client management suite provides a ᭹᭹᭹᭺᭺ | IT must evaluate a range of factors organization solid foundation for remote support,software distribution, before purchasing, such as driver support, application and asset management.As a result,client downtime is mini- compatibility, and hardware/staff resources.The mized and applications/updates can be delivered quickly. market is more complex than when XP rolled out.

Business ᭹᭹᭹᭺᭺ | Deployment tools will help IT deliver the ᭹᭹᭺᭺᭺ | The biggest risk to competitiveness competitiveness business benefits of Windows 7 to employees faster and is the possibility of a botched or mismanaged Win 7 reduce downtime during the switchover. deployment.

Bottom ᭹᭹᭹᭹᭺ The right tool will ease the pain of an OS deployment and make long-term management of line ᭹᭹᭹᭺᭺ Windows 7 more efficient.The wrong tool will divert precious resources, so choose wisely.

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range of features offered for packaging and deploying Window 7 itself. We’ll look at post- installation client management features, remote administration, reporting, deployment of the management system itself, and, of course, pricing. We’ve invited a diverse slate of vendors, both leaders and emerging players:

ACRONIS Though Acronis’ deployment tool is designed only for enterprise imaging, migration, and bare- metal restoration, without additional client management features, that’s all some organizations will need for their Windows 7 upgrades. We’ll test how the product’s deployment capabilities stack up against more full-featured rivals.

AVOCENT LANDESK As with most vendors in our Rolling Review, LANDesk offers a software suite that accounts for the entire systems management life cycle, including OS imaging and migration, software distribution, remote management, software licens- Rolling WINDOWS 7 Review DEPLOYMENT ing compliance, and reporting. [ The invitation We’re reviewing client management software packages to discover how KACE KBOX they handle a Windows 7 upgrade. Founded in 2003, Kace is an innovator in the client management market and is emerging as a real competitor to established players. The vendors Novell ZenWorks, Symantec Altiris, The company offers both low-end and high-end KBOX appliances. Avocent LANDesk, Microsoft System We’ll test the high-end version, which includes inventory, control, Center Configuration Manager, Kace KBOX, Acronis software distribution, reporting, OS imaging and deployment, user state migration, and system recovery. The test bed Our lab simulates a business compris- ing four geographically distributed sites.We’ll deploy Win 7 over the LAN, MICROSOFT SYSTEM CENTER CONFIGURATION MANAGER the WAN, and via removable media. We’ll test how well user apps and data Our review wouldn’t be complete without Microsoft’s own System transition to Windows 7, and what the Center Configuration Manager. In our review of SCCM, we’ll also admin experience is like.We’ll also un- cover how well each suite can manage touch briefly on the Windows Deployment Toolkit, a free set of utili- the client desktop environment, includ- ties for migration and upgrades that comes with Windows 7. ing remote management, reporting, and software distribution.

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NOVELL ZENWORKS Novell has developed one of the most robust and heterogeneous offerings of any vendor. On the client management side, ZenWorks is compatible with an array of Windows operating systems, from Windows 2000 on up. ZenWorks lately has lost some market share to LANDesk and Altiris, but Novell is still an active player.

SYMANTEC ALTIRIS Acquired by Symantec in 2007, Altiris is broken up into several product lines. We plan to test the Client Management Suite and the Deployment Suite. If we find a strategic and important feature contained within another suite, we’ll test it as needed.

Randy George ([email protected]) is an industry analyst covering infrastructure and security.