Client Management

Introduction• In a typical organization there are a lot of client machines

used for day to day operations• Client management is a necessary tasks:

– Installing and updating software– Patch installation– Troubleshooting and Recovery from faults

• When a company getting large it is a tedious task to do such management without appropriate tools

• Now there are client management software that can help to provide such services more effectively

• Altiris is an example of such software used also in CE

Why we need client management software

Client Management Suit

Deployment solution

• Used for– New PC deployment– Hardware refresh– OS migration

• Create single standard image• Hands-off desktop deployment• Data and Settings migration

Deployment and Configuration

• Aim is to ease OS and Software installations and configuration

• This is done with a variety of tools and service:– Boot image– Software packaging

A sample scenario

• Bob is a new hire in sales department and needs a new laptop

• Sally in IT department orders a laptop, hands over it to Bob and says “Simply plug-it in”

• With deployment features Sally have a Base Image of all the files from a base machine

Boot and Software packages on a Server

Management and Support

• Sally needs to support client computers through the network.

• She sets up a Altiris client on Bob’s machine which monitors it

• When a problem occurs Sally can see the detail of Bob’s machine like the installed software, hardware and network settings so that she have a better understanding of the problem and how to fix it.

Detail information of a client machine

Software troubleshooting

• Bob on road uses VPN to connect to the company network

• He realizes that CRM package does not work properly and ask sally to fix it.

• Having a tool (Carbon Copy) enables sally to remotely control Bob’s computer and investigate the problem

• Next figure shows this situation

Troubleshooting

• Sally founds out that a patch to CRM package solves the Bob problem.

• Also to prevent other clients experiencing the similar problem packages the patch and distribute it to the client machines with the help of console

• Next image shows this situation

Distribution of updates

Effective patch management

Planning and assessment

• Statistical view of the client machines

Planning and Assessments (2)

• Tracking application usage

• Usage: Uninstall un-necessary software from a client machine and use the license for another machine

Backup and recovery

• Having snapshots of the client files stored in a server

Backup and recovery (2)

• Restoring a file

• Full system restore lets to recover a client to its state before a hardware crash for example a hard disk crash

Migration

• Upgrading to a new OS version• It is a tedious handy work:

– Backing up client data– Software settings– Personality settings (e.g. desktop wallpaper,

font settings, etc.)• A client management system will help in

migration to reduce such efforts

References

• Altiris.com