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Five seconds must be enough
The market offers a lot of computers to you. Intel based systems, Apple computers or classic workstations like IBM-AIX, SGI-Irix, HP-HPUX, ALPHA-Digital, SUN-Sparc, RMxxx-Reliant and other nice pairs of special hardware with special operating systems. You have the real chance to manage all of these computers with a five second sequence of your fingertips. Change to the Open Management Architecture (OMA) and you can have zero total cost of ownership (TOC).
Computers must have the right things to operate smoothly. Normally you have to install an operating system and your applications. But what happens if you want to change the systems? Probably you can switch from Windows 2000 to Windows XP with an update procedure. But how can you switch from Windows 2000 to Linux, from MacOS 9 to MacOS X, from Windows NT to Windows XXL or ...? You must create a new installation.
Terrible unattended set ups
An unattended set up seems a solution, if you have a lot of time. But which unattended set up is most appropriate? Wizards for Windows, the JumpStart technique of Solaris, the NIM procedure of AIX, the RoboInst mechanism of IRIX or the hand made set ups of Linux? After the long wait of an unattended set up you have to deliver software. After months of software delivery every computer differs from each other. You need an incremental backup for each system or a lot of manpower in your help desk teams.
This is the cycle of the never-ending story of dissatisfaction in existing environments. You cannot be sure that your computers have the right software on their hard disks.
Set up master installations
Cutting back on the costs involved in operating existing environments is only possible if every computer can have your standards with little effort. How can you obtain the installations for your computers without scripting? Take one sort of your x86 computers, a possible Sparc system or the preferred Apple machine. Set up the operating system on one part of the hard disk and reserve the rest of the pie for the software products. A compressed image of the installation partition will be saved on the OMA server.
No problems with different hardware
How can it be that images from a SCSI-NoSound-E100card-Computer are running on an IDE-SoundBlaster-3ComCard-Computer? OMA transfer images from model A to model B. You set up the hardware on B and OMA detects the difference. Finally you have only one image and one additional hardware group with some files. What’s the matter with the computer name, the IP address and so on? OMA produces these data and sets up all values during the first computer start after the installation is finished.
Separate software packages or not
OMA can install software from a master system too. Two scans are made for each software product: one scan before and another after the installation. You will have software packages with only three parts (e.g. files for D, files for C, and a registry key file). Software for Linux/Unix is taken by the same way, but you will not have a registry key file. Alternatively you can install the software as a part of the image. You can define any combination of images and software packages for each computer under one name.
Reboot into management
Which system must be running on a computer if you need a refresh of a local hard disk? That depends on the sort of computer. OMA has one bootable CD or boot prom file for all your x86 computers, only one bootable CD for all Apple machines and only one menu choice to start all Unix workstations diskless. You have to reboot a computer into the OMA management before any action is allowed. In practice you can never damage your running systems with this technology.
Experience the truth
Please book a workshop to learn how management for the future is working. You will see a result in ten minutes, and I will need only five seconds to initialise the process for one computer or a whole company.
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