Need some recommendations for a new tool

[stu1892]

Morning,

 

We're fed up with issues with net-runna and the support is woeful at best.

 

We need something new to image machines.

 

We have 70 PCs in one building with a pretty huge 90gb image on it, full of some obscure software too. Net-runna when it works, takes this image and we can deploy to multiple machines pretty easily.

 

We also have the school site, which has approx 300 PCs and laptops, many different specs.

Most images are different and at the school they're about 20gb.

 

I've just tried the Acronis Snap Deploy trial which looks good, but there's only so far i can go with testing without PXE tools installed. I tried one image from a PC to a server share and it said it was going to take 9 hours so i cancelled it as i have other things to do today.

 

So i was wondering is there anything out there we can get our head around simply that will deploy large images full of software?

Do any of you take such large images, etc?

I'm pretty new to all this imaging as when i started, Netrunna was set up already and away we went.

 

Thanks in advance.

[Domino]

What issues are you having with net-runna? I used it at my last place and found it really quite good.

 

That said, the open source FOG is a pretty amazing imaging solution - and damn fast

[stu1892]

Cheers Domino.

 

Basically it's spitting up some errors that their support can't even fix, which isn't the first time, btw!

 

Short of rebuilding each image at the moment, we're stuck!

 

Will FOG let me take large images full of software?

[Domino]

absolutely

 

It will require a bit of linux knowledge (basic command line stuff) to get going, but its a robust and user friendly system.

 

Also there's a lot of resources on here, in our wiki and through their own knowledgebase FOG :: A Computer Cloning Solution - Home

 

Can't recommend it enough myself, and I know a few other members are of a similar mind

[stu1892]

Yeah, seen it mentioned a lot, without following it up.

 

I'll take a look, especially if the Wiki's good.

[Guest TheLibrarian]

Symantec Ghost Corporate Edition, although if we hadn't bought it at such a good price, we'd probably be using FOG too.

[stu1892]

Looking at it, i might ask my boss for a decent PC (we have a batch ordered for swapouts) and give this a go as i doubt very much he'll let me put Linux on the server!

[ninjabeaver]

I'll vote for FOG as well. Just added a 500GB HDD for the image storage now. Followed the instructons and done. Good kit. It's running on one of those cheap HP Servers that get advertised now and again for £150 to £180ish.

[stu1892]

If i was to set this up to give it a shot, could i leave netrunna active as the vast majority of our machines PXE boot and won't boot if the netrunna boot server isn't running.

 

Basically FOG won't just try and take over?