Snap Deploy vs RIS

I've been reading a lot about Acronis Snap Deploy and Universal Deploy and have wondered if this would be a better option than RIS.

At the moment due to the way RIS works and installs from a CD base (instead of an hardware image) this is what we use. We then allocate software using GPO and install some things manually - such as Adobe CS3. Updates are done using WSUS.

In another thread people re-imaged over the Summer and I questioned why - their answers made me think that maybe this would be a good idea (although with only one technician it could be a problem).

So with Acronis SD + UD I wonder if we could make images with CS3 and all of our other software onboard and then deploy that image to various other hardware configurations. It certainly seems like it would be less fuss than RIS and GPO software deployment.

Does anyone have any opinions on this? DOes it work?

Many thanks

Gareth

possibly slightly off topic but deploy studio ?

DeployStudio

ok now you can go :focus:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by garethedmondson

I've been reading a lot about Acronis Snap Deploy and Universal Deploy and have wondered if this would be a better option than RIS.

At the moment due to the way RIS works and installs from a CD base (instead of an hardware image) this is what we use. We then allocate software using GPO and install some things manually - such as Adobe CS3. Updates are done using WSUS.

In another thread people re-imaged over the Summer and I questioned why - their answers made me think that maybe this would be a good idea (although with only one technician it could be a problem).

So with Acronis SD + UD I wonder if we could make images with CS3 and all of our other software onboard and then deploy that image to various other hardware configurations. It certainly seems like it would be less fuss than RIS and GPO software deployment.

Does anyone have any opinions on this? DOes it work?

Many thanks

Gareth

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In theory Snap Deploy and Universal Deploy would be the way to go, but I've just spent a couple of days trying to get my head round deploying an image to a machine with identical spec without much success. If I succeed I'll post on here. See this post

Similar experience to beeswax. SnapDeploy promises lots but takes time to learn.

If you already know RIS and it works for you then experience tells me to stick with what you have. Alternatively if you have time to spend on learning something new SnapDeploy does image and deploy whole machines to similar or completely different hardware. Though I have yet to achieve this :(

What about WDS? Haven't played with it much myself yet but it includes a RIS legacy mode so your current RIS setup will continue to work and it supports ghost like image installation using WIM images.