Image deployment and creation cost

[LeMarchand]

I realise that this is a long shot, as I would imagine everyone does this "in house", but has anyone ever paid a third party to deploy an image or to create and deploy an image?

Need to get a ball park figure for 20-30 machines that may work with the existing image (which needs updating anyway) but it's more likely to be a creation+deployment job so I can put in a sensible quote. Can't do a per hour charge as it's likely to be way too high and the actual time taken isn't as great as the hours spent because a lot of the time it's waiting for the stuff to load/copy.

[Jiser]

I realise that this is a long shot, as I would imagine everyone does this "in house", but has anyone ever paid a third party to deploy an image or to create and deploy an image?

Need to get a ball park figure for 20-30 machines that may work with the existing image (which needs updating anyway) but it's more likely to be a creation+deployment job so I can put in a sensible quote. Can't do a per hour charge as it's likely to be way too high and the actual time taken isn't as great as the hours spent because a lot of the time it's waiting for the stuff to load/copy.

Its not difficult. Why would you even think about paying anyone else to do it? Sorry I just don't get it. Waste of tax payers money for one!!

If you can't image a computer or find out how to do it, you shouldn't be doing the job your doing.

Of course I have no idea of what situation you are in or your skills and I might be annoying you a hell of alot.

I know schools which have and it was roughly a few thousand or a per hour jobie.

My suggestions for imaging are clonezilla or fog which are both open source + sysprep.

[SYNACK]

As its network level stuff I would think that the standard contractor one or two full days of engineer time would apply. This is what they usually do for servers and it is not just making the image but testing and setting up a deployment method if it is not already in place.

If you need to do the image, deployment and setup of the deployment mechanisum then I would think that an external contractor would usually go for a couple of full days. If it is an easy known system that already has a deployment method setup and all pcs can be quickly imaged or imaged by their staff afterwards I would be leaning more towards the one full day.

Remember if you don't charge enough they won't take you seriously.

[maniac]

A lot of manufacturers will do imaging for free when you buy new machines, but never actually employed an outside company to do this as I've never even considered outsourcing this task.

If you're quoting to do this for someone, charge per day and find out as much information as possible. Also be careful if you're creating the image from scratch, as if there's problems in the future it could come and bite you on the arse. Make sure the client specifies exactly what they want on the image even down to addons like Flash, JAVA etc. That way it takes some of the burden of remembering to include everything off your shoulders.

Mike.

[MatthewL]

We have recently just got one image that does Panasonic and Dell devices, laptops, desktops and toughbooks.

Your best bet would be to sit down and do it how you want because there is a chance that if you get someone else to do it you will miss something out.

[LeMarchand]

Thanks for the thoughts - though if anyone else actually has a "hard" figure it would be great.

As there appears to be some confusion: at this particular site I am a self-employed contractor (only recently started), and need to quote the school for creating and deploying the image as they only have me for a few hours/week and I'm still at the "fire fighting" stage. The last time they had this done, a third party installed the software they were told to but only that software (as someone pointed out, no Flash etc) and there were a few odd problems (fair enough, as they wouldn't have known some of the "quirks" of Educational Software). It may be that the existing image will work, but it will need updating, but I suspect a new image will be needed (and I'd prefer to start from scratch anyway). The actual work isn't the problem, it's just how much to charge - too high and they'll get the last lot to do it with the same problems, too low and they'll expect everything done at a discount rate!

[jsnetman]

I would be charging £35 per hour, now that might be a lot cheaper than a 3rd party engineer but it would be high enough for you to make a decent profit without being over the top.

[LeMarchand]

I would be charging £35 per hour, now that might be a lot cheaper than a 3rd party engineer but it would be high enough for you to make a decent profit without being over the top.

Cheers but it needs to be a quote, similar to a builder's quote: i.e. £x for the job done rather than £x/hour until it's done.

[jsnetman]

Ok you work out how long you think it will take and multiply hrs x 35. Simples.

I would probably go for 8 hours myself.

[LeMarchand]

Putting this in today, so a little bump to see if there are any other takers.