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Thanks to host Herrick Douglass for sponsoring this meeting. This was the Agenda. Northwest Remedy User
Group Meeting October
16, 2001,
v This meeting was held at Herrick Douglass in Bellevue. v Presentation – Intel. Ken Axt and Paul Finenauer presented LANDesk v6.5. Ø Average payback (ROI) is about 76 days, and over a 3 year period, the ROI was over 1000% on a $741K investment. The ROI is over half based in improvement in IT management productivity, with most of the rest split between IT management efficiency and User productivity. Ø A calculator (an Excel spreadsheet) is available from Intel to help customers compute their estimated ROI. Ø Features include an Integrated Web console, Remote Control, Inventory, an Alert management system, Application Healing, and many others. Ø Over 150 new features in v6.5. OS deployment was a hole in their product package, which is why they acquired PowerQuest. § Directory Integration – an LDAP directory structure. It allows software to be distributed based on common user particulars, like location, using data available through use of MS2K Active Directory. § Mobile Systems Management – allows the administrator to use available bandwidth between client and server as a criteria for allowing it to download. The Administrator sets the thresholds on a per distribution basis. § Fire and Forget – allows the distribution to perform the actions necessary for success (power on, etc.) of the distribution. Ø You can distribute and install ANY software – Veritas, SMS, etc. Ø Users can decide which software to accept, and when to have it installed. Distribution packages, once created, are available for use until removed. Ø Server administrator can scan for any type of hardware or software on any client to which it can connect. Ø Inventory of a client can be shown in a web browser on the server. Ø Suggested pricing is about $70 per node, for a full-featured installation. That’s 23% lower than v6.4, with more features. Ø XP and UNIX will be supported in the next version, which is due early 2002. v Presentation – PowerQuest. Brendan Robinson and Rich Meservy presented Ø They make a product called Partition Magic. It allows NTSF, FAT, FAT32, etc. virtual drives to be converted from one type to another without corrupting any of the data on any of the drives. Ø Used by 77% of the Fortune 1000 companies in the US. Ø Features of PowerDeploy Suite § Virtual Floppy – emulates a DOS boot floppy by compiling all of the necessary system files into one bootable file, which can be scripted. § SmartSector technology creates an exact image of the source drive, not a cleaned up version. It is completely restorable. § DeployCenter multicasts to many workstations at once. § Migration Manager automates capture of personal information from a client. § DataGone provides PERMANENT data removal from a disk. It exceeds the NSA requirements for security in that regard, and is equal to sulfuric acid being poured onto the disk surface in its effectiveness at permanently and completely removing data from a disk drive. Of course, the acid idea is kind of a one-time thing, so the software’s probably a better idea for most of us. § ImageCenter is what LANDesk takes advantage of to work better in v6.5. It creates and manipulates images of a disk, which is useful for backups and restores. v
Hot Topics Ø Elections – Geoff Endresen used bribery in the form of his wife’s brownies to get himself overwhelmingly elected as Charlotte Murray’s replacement as NWRUG President. Ø Rick Cook appears to have stolen re-election to the office of NWRUG Secretary, as well as more than one of the aforementioned brownies. And a Pepsi. Ø Next Meeting – November 13, 2001. Location TBD. |
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