When new servers or workstations need to be deployed,
one of the big decisions to make is whether these systems will be built
and deployed manually or if the system deployment process will be
automated. Automating system deployment is not a task that can be
completed in a few hours or days, at least not the first time. On the
contrary, building a functional operating system deployment
infrastructure takes careful planning, sometimes expensive licenses, and
many hours and days or weeks worth of testing and tuning the images and
the automation. There are a few different ways Windows server and
business desktop operating system deployments can be performed,
including manual installation, unattended installations,
manufacturer-assisted or customized unattended installations, and
through the deployment of prebuilt and possibly customized operating
system images.
Manual Installation Using Installation Media
Manual
installation is rather straightforward. Insert the installation media
and run through the step-by-step installation, documenting all of your
settings as you move forward. This method is sometimes required when
administrators do not have an image suitable for the particular hardware
platform or when only a small number of systems are regularly deployed
and taking the time to create unattended or image type installations is
unnecessary and provides no real value to the organization.
Unattended Installation
Unattended
installations can be helpful when deploying a large number of desktops
and servers that have the same hardware specifications. An unattended
file is simply a file created that answers all the questions asked
during a manual installation. Unattended configuration files were
historically referred to as answer files. Options in some unattended
answer files can include accepting the end-user licensing agreement,
entering a volume license product key, choosing to format the drive,
specifying a particular partition or volume size for the operating
system, and much more. This is now referred to as an unattended
installation file.
Manufacturer-Assisted Installation
Some manufacturers
provide automated installation media that, upon bootup, prompts the
administrator to answer a few questions and the remainder of the
installation is automated. This is a very common scenario encountered in
the retail sector for home user and business desktops and servers that
are shipped with preinstalled operating systems. These types of
installations usually include original equipment manufacturer (OEM)
licensed software. One important point to note is that when an
organization wants to move toward the automated deployment of servers or
desktops using an imaging or deployment system, an OEM operating system
license and media cannot be used as it usually violates the licensing
agreement.
Cloning or Imaging Systems
Cloning or imaging systems can
be helpful when deploying a series of identical desktops and servers.
You build up a desktop or a server, prepare the system for
cloning/imaging, and copy/capture the system image using third-party
tools or Microsoft deployment tools such as Windows Deployment Services.
Microsoft only supports the cloning and imaging of servers and desktops
when Sysprep is used to generate new machine security identifiers
(SIDs). Windows Deployment Services can be used to deploy both base
installation images and customized or captured installation images to
Windows servers and desktops.
System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R2
For medium- and
enterprise-sized organizations, additional deployment options can be
leveraged when the organization has deployed System Center Configuration
Manager 2007 R2 or System Center Configuration Manager 2007. Utilizing
the Operating System Deployment feature, organizations can leverage a
zero-touch or lite-touch deployment of operating systems. As evident by
the name zero-touch, if configured properly, the workstation or server
does not ever need a visit. As an example of how this can be used, an
existing Windows XP or Windows Vista SP1 system can be tested for
Windows 7 compatibility and if the tests pass, the user state can be
exported and saved, a customized Windows 7 image can be pushed down to
the system followed by postimage processing to install applications,
and, finally, restoring the exported user state if compatible. The end
result delivers Windows 7 to the end-user desktop with the user’s
profile already configured. More information on this and many of the
other valuable features included with System Center Configuration
Manager 2007 R2 can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/configurationmanager/en/us/default.aspx.
Remote Installation Services
Remote
Installation Services (RIS) was released with Windows 2000 Server and
was Microsoft’s first successful “over the network” operating system
deployment services. Windows 2000 Server RIS did not support server
operating systems and had many limitations, but it was a very functional
and valuable tool.
Automated Deployment Services
Automated Deployment Services
was an add-on to Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition, and was
designed to assist with the rapid deployment of Windows 2000/2003 server
operating systems only. For organizations that utilized Windows Server
2003 and required desktop deployment options, Windows Server 2003 Remote
Installation Services was still required.
Windows Server 2003 SP2 Windows Deployment Services
With the release of
Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2, administrators could upgrade their
Windows Server 2003 RIS systems to Windows Server 2003 Windows
Deployment Services (WDS). If RIS had previously been deployed with
existing images, the upgrade took the existing RIS (RIPREP and RISETUP)
images and placed them in the Legacy Image folder within the WDS MMC
snap-in and upon your initial launch of the WDS console, the
administrators were prompted to choose whether the WDS system would run
in Legacy or Mixed mode. After a few more simple configurations,
existing RIS images would work successfully in the environment.
Windows Server 2008 R2 Windows Deployment Services (WDS)
Windows Deployment Services
(WDS) running on Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2 systems
provides many of the same features and functions of RIS, Automated
Deployment Services, and Windows Server 2003 SP2 WDS combined. Windows
Server 2008 R2 WDS also provides additional functionality not included
in any of its predecessors. Two of the distinct features of Windows
Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Windows Deployment Services are
that both server and desktop operating systems can be deployed and
images can be deployed using multicast communication. New specifically
on Windows Server 2008 R2 WDS systems is the ability to support directly
adding drivers or driver provisioning to Windows 7 and Windows Server
2008 R2 boot images using the WDS console and the support for network
booting on x64-based computers with Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI)
support.
