Deployment Services are software-based services that facilitate the implementation and deployment of new applications or infrastructure. They may include hardware or software procurement, configuration, tuning, staging, installation and interoperability testing.
Benefits of app deployment include increased security, simplified management and better insight into user behavior. App deployment makes it easier to complete tasks that take a lot of time and are resource intensive, such as software upgrades.
Whether your organization requires to move servers or add new servers, HP offers a comprehensive range of deployment services that can help speed up the process. Our deployment services include everything from delivery of devices and staging to setting up the hardware as well as data migration and installation.
Windows Deployment Service – Provides centralized, network-based deployment of the operating system to bare metal computers. It is the successor to Remote Installation Services (RIS). WDS utilizes disk images to deploy virtually any OS.
Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 or later utilizes the Windows Image Format (WIM) for example, to create images that can be used to install remotely. A Windows image is a pre-boot environment that boots the computer and allows it to install the operating system. The pre-boot environment can be modified and extended by the administrator to carry out other tasks such as installing additional drivers.
To utilize WDS the environment needs to be configured to allow a local network or Internet access. The environment must also have an Windows Deployment Services Server role installed on the server. This includes a DHCP server.
Microsoft offers a range of tools that can be used with WDS to manage deployment servers, build, capture, and apply images. These include imagex, dism, and wdsutil. These tools can be used on the same server as the WDS server or on separate servers. The imagex command-line utility can produce one WIM structure or a deduplication of WIM. It can be used on the network share or mapped drive. The wdsutil utility can be used to manage the WDS server without the visual user interface, and also to upload images that have been taken to the repository.
Virtual Machines can be created as client machines to build and testing Windows deployment image. Virtual machines can affect the performance of the Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) download phase. This is particularly important in the event that the virtual machines are not able to handle a complete boot loader.
Multiple WDS Servers – Can be used to provide fault tolerance and redundancy. You can make use of one WDS to manage multiple WIM images, or deploy multiple WDS servers to increase availability and the degree of fault tolerance.
A Windows image is created with ImageX or a third-party tool. It is then distributed over the Internet to other WDS servers. It is then downloaded to a local server, a remote server or Hyper-V virtual machine.
Ron’s supervisor gives him the task to deploy the most recent Windows 7 OS at the company’s fifty branch offices. He wants to do this remotely, so that he doesn’t need to travel to branch sites, but company policy stipulates that only one DHCP server is permitted on the corporate network, and that’s located at the Tooth City office.