Tooling Up For Vista
But after five years and 50 million lines of code from Microsoft, the channel has begun the early stages of upgrading systems to the software giant's newest operating system. Over time, it is sure to create revenue for solution providers—and it could come easy to VARs that make it their job to push Vista out to the corporate desktop.
Still, it's easier said than done.
While integrators, resellers and solution providers hash out the best way to bring Vista to customers, they are faced with some key hurdles to overcome. Driver support, application compatibility and hardware capabilities are all top-of-list issues. But those issues are leading to other critical tasks such as application inventory that may have been put off since the last big upgrade.
Slide Show: 5 Tools For Easing Vista Install Headaches
It's testing patience. As one solution provider put it, "I put the disk into my own laptop at home before I came to work today. I've tried to upgrade it twice already, and it didn't work either time. If I get home and it still hasn't worked, I'm throwing it into the river."
David Hall, CTO of CompuCom, said the Dallas-based solution provider has invested much in developing a strategy for the rollout of Vista to corporate customers. While the company doesn't expect to see widespread adoption of Vista in 2007, its work toward a best-practices approach to Vista deployment is ready now nonetheless.
"Based on the numbers I've seen out there, 15 [percent] to 30 percent of the systems will have hardware that qualifies for a Vista upgrade," Hall said. "To really truly run the operating platform, to some degree, you're looking at a replacement of the system as a whole. You may have to catch them on one of their larger refresh cycles."
To that end, the "clean" upgrade is a favored approach, Hall said. Taking inventory of applications deployed throughout an enterprise to determine which are Vista-compatible and which are not also would be essential as part of a best-practices approach.
"For the early adopters, their biggest challenge is making sure [Vista] supports everything," Hall said. "Out of the box, right now, there are a lot of drivers that are just not available. That's going to be one of the key issues for early adopters."
Specifically, Hall pointed to the lack of compatibility between Vista and VPN technology deployed in many enterprises. "It doesn't support the primary VPNs that are currently on the market," Hall said. "For many clients, that's a showstopper right now."
Some vendors, such as Laplink, have begun rolling out Vista deployment tools for the enterprise, and Microsoft last week made six tools generally available for free downloads—two that were new and four that had been previously available to qualified partners and select customers.
While the debate rages on as to whether or not Vista is worth the wait, one thing is certain: It will be a source of revenue, and it should come easy to VARs that have done their homework.
The simple fact is that those pushing Vista will be faced by many challenges, starting with the initial sale of the product. VARs will have to demonstrate the value of Vista to the enterprise user to garner sales. Focusing on security enhancements, improved stability and better policy-based controls should prime the Vista sales pump.
Sales issues aside, there are several technical obstacles that VARs will have to clear to ensure a successful deployment. Two elements will smooth the road to success: having a plan and picking the right tools for the job.
NEXT: Sizing up the environment SIZING UP THE ENVIRONMENT
Designing a plan will be the most critical step. Ideally, starting with fresh hardware would be the easiest path to follow, but also the most expensive.
Another alternative if the in-place hardware is up to snuff is to do a "clean" install of Vista on all systems. But that method wipes out any existing software and data. Businesses willing to refresh hardware and upgrade applications may be good candidates for a clean install approach, but many, if not most, enterprise environments will want to preserve line-of-business applications and user settings. That means an over-the-wire upgrade—the least desirable and most problematic approach.
In order to choose the right approach, and regardless of what approach is ultimately selected, solution providers will need to size up the environment, beginning with finding out what hardware and software is deployed and whether it is Vista-compatible. That can be a tedious, manual process. Fortunately, VARs can turn to a number of free Microsoft and commercial software tools to ease the task.
Microsoft's Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor is a good starting point for testing individual systems. It is a free download and effectively scans a Windows PC for hardware compatibility issues. For networked PCs, though, more robust tools will be needed. VARs can download Microsoft's Windows Vista Hardware Assessment (VHA) tool. That application queries PCs on the network and creates a list of systems that are compatible with Vista or a list of what needs to be done to make those systems compatible.
VHA proves to be a powerful sales tool for VARs looking to provide clients with a preliminary assessment of a network for possible upgrades. The tool queries PCs via a Windows Workgroup or Active Directory. All of the PCs will need to be turned on and VARs have to provide administrator-level account information to VHA for the assessment to be successful. The application creates both a spreadsheet and a Word document that offers a complete view of Vista compatibility for all queried PCs.
Microsoft also offers the Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT), which creates an inventory of all applications and Web services on PCs and provides up-to-the-minute information about compatiblity with Vista. Both VHA and ACT require a bit of manual configuration and hands-on operations to gather the data, so many solution providers will turn to more automated tools such as the Microsoft Solution Accelerator for Business Desktop Deployment 2007. In most cases, VARs will want to use this or third-party software deployment tools such as those from Altiris, LanDesk or Symantec.
Business Desktop Deployment offers two deployment scenarios, a light-touch installation and a zero-touch installation. The zero-touch installation requires SMS 2003 to be installed and in use and is only appropriate for those sites that have deployed SMS 2003. The light-touch installation requires several free utilities to be downloaded from Microsoft, and there are several other prerequisites that must be met before one can get started. For example, Windows 2003 Server with Active Directory and Windows Deployment Services are required, as is the .Net 2.0 framework.
There are commercial alternatives to Business Desktop Deployment, but those alternatives will incur additional costs. Even so, choosing an alternative may make the job that much easier and bring additional benefits to the customer, such as patch management, software inventory and other capabilities.
Solution providers can upsell system management tools such as Symantec Ghost Solution Suite 2.0, Altiris Deployment Solution or LanDesk Management Suite.
NEXT: Deployment options DEPLOYMENT OPTIONS
After inventorying the network, solution providers will be able to assess what systems need upgrading and whether a clean install is needed or an upgrade approach is possible.
Those looking to follow the upgrade process from a previous Windows version to Vista will want to seriously consider abandoning Microsoft's free tools and look into a product designed for upgrading operating systems such as PCMover from Laplink Software.
For those truly committed to using Microsoft's free tools, the logical choice would be to use Microsoft's User State Migration Tool (USMT), which allows administrators to back up all of the user's desktop data and settings and then import that information into the new operating system. But be forewarned, USMT does not transfer applications, just data.
Those following the clean-install approach will appreciate the changes Microsoft has made to OS deployments with Vista. Microsoft now uses a standard imaging technology called Windows Imaging Format (WIM), which uses compression and single-instance storage to reduce image storage requirements.
WIM is file-based, which makes it possible to add and remove components to customize and maintain images without having to rebuild images. WIM is also independent of the underlying hardware platform and that, combined with the modularization of device and language features, helps to keep images small.
Setup for automated deployments is further eased by the use of a single unified answer file (unattend.xml) that uses industry-standard XML syntax. Images are built using XImage, an application that can be executed from the command line or within the Windows PE preinstallation environment. XImage can be used to capture a master computer, which has been prepared with Microsoft's Sysprep tool, to create a WIM file that can be applied to target systems.
In short, manually deploying Vista consists of the following steps: Installing Vista and applications on a master computer and running Sysprep; using XImage to capture the image from the master computer; customizing the image by adding drivers and language modules as needed; deploying the image from media or from a server using scripts; and maintaining the image as Service Packs and driver updates are released.
While you can do the deployment manually, Business Desktop Deployment 2007 helps to automate most of those steps and build the deployment out as a project. For larger sites, that will come in especially handy. VARs can approach deploying Vista on a department-by-department basis and avoid the hassles associated with a single large deployment.
Activation is another hurdle. Microsoft also recently began providing two new tools to ease volume activation requirements. The Windows Volume Activation Management Tool (VAMT) enables IT professionals to automate and centrally manage volume activations using a multiple activation key. And the Key Management Service (KMS) for Windows Server 2003 allows business customers to host a local service within their environment to activate Vista without sending any data to Microsoft.
TESTING AND VALIDATION
Once VARs have a plan and have identified their tools, one of the of the most important steps is testing and validating the plan to avoid unforeseen complications in the field.
Testing a deployment in a lab environment allows VARs to estimate the time needed per system, as well as the storage, bandwidth and staffing requirements.
VARs will find that demystifying Vista deployment scenarios in the lab, coupled with the plethora of upgrade tools available, will make selling upgrade services no longer such a daunting task and one that can lead to profitable services and satisfied customers.