Chapter 8: Automation Operating Systems; Which Automation Operating System Should I Use; Dos - Symantec ALTIRIS DEPLOYMENT SOLUTION 6.9 SP4 - V1.0 Manual

Chapter 8
Automation Operating Systems

Which Automation Operating System Should I Use?

DOS

Deployment Solution
After you have selected a method to boot computers into automation, you need to
decide which operating system you want to use. In the past, MS DOS was the only
supported option. Deployment Solution now supports WinPE, Linux, MS DOS, and
FreeDOS.
This section provides an overview of the available automation operating systems so you
can find an environment (or environments) that suit your needs.
An important thing to note is that the automation environment you use is not
constrained by the production operating system on the computer. All of the DS
automation tools support these operating systems, so you can perform DS automation
tasks in any operating system (Linux computers can be imaged from DOS, Windows
computers can be imaged from Linux, and so on).
You might even use two automation operating systems for different tasks within the
same job. Example: you might use a vendor-supplied tool to perform a BIOS update in
DOS, boot to WinPE or Linux to perform an imaging task.
When you set up your test environment, you might want to run automation jobs in
multiple operating systems to see if one performs better in your environment.
The following sections contain an overview of the automation operating systems:
DOS (page 44)
WinPE (page 45)
Linux (page 45)
Although you can use these environments to perform a wide-variety of management
using scripts and other tools, support for these environments is limited to the task
performed by Deployment Solution.
DOS is still used often today as a pre-boot environment, though new technologies have
emerged that might better suit your environment, such as WinPE.
The largest roadblocks most companies face when using DOS are access to drivers that
support modern hardware, and security concerns. DOS still performs well for several
tasks though, and can be a good choice if you have the proper driver support.
DOS typically requires only around 1 MB of space.
DOS provides an additional advantage in a PXE environment. When performing an
automation task on multiple computers, the PXE server can use multicast to boot
automation, which enables large numbers of managed computers to boot DOS
simultaneously.
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