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4372ch01.fm Draft Document for Review November 15, 2007 3:27 pm
12 Tivoli Provisioning Manager for OS Deployment in a Retail Environment
Once the installation has been prepared, the system must be booted from the
network and connect to the Tivoli Provisioning Manager for OS Deployment
server, From here, the installation can be used to create a new profile.
1.7.3 Deploying to multiple systems from a master image
Once the profile is on the Tivoli Provisioning Manager for OS Deployment server
and necessary additional adjustments, scripts and drivers have been added, it is
ready for deployment to other systems.
Without any further changes, the master image can be used for deployments to
systems with same hardware. In order to distribute to systems with other
hardware, it may be necessary to inject new drivers. This is done by defining
software packages with the drivers and define bindings or rules for which drivers
to inject on which systems.
1.7.4 Re-deploying to a specific system to resolve a problem
Normally if a software or hardware related problem occurs, the IT organization
will attempt to troubleshoot and fix the problem. This can be a time consuming
effort. The retail environment varys significantly from the traditional office
environments where PCs are used for administrative tasks. Imagine a small
super market or store with three or four cash registers. If one POS station is not
available during busy hours, the line of customers could quickly grow, resulting in
unhappy customers and eventually loss of business when disgruntled customers
leave the store without making their purchases.
For the retail environment, it is therefore imperative that a failed system be
brought back into operation as quickly as possible. Tivoli Provisioning Manager
for OS Deployment provides several tools to assist in doing this, depending on
the particular situation:
If the failure is a local software error, the quickest way to get a system back
online is a local redeployment. This feature requires that a copy of the
installed image exist in a hidden partition on the hard drive, and that any local
dynamic data can be automatically retrieved from a central server after
redeployment.
If the failure is the result of a malfunctioning hard drive, and a replacement
drive is quickly installed, a new operating system can be deployed from a
local Tivoli Provisioning Manager for OS Deployment server within 20-30
minutes. As in the previous case any dynamic data will need to be recovered
or recreated after OS redeployment.