Automation Partitions; Boot Media (Dvd/Cd, Usb Device, Floppy) - Symantec ALTIRIS DEPLOYMENT SOLUTION 6.9 SP4 - V1.0 Manual

Automation Partitions

Boot Media (DVD/CD, USB Device, Floppy)

Deployment Solution
This configuration does not require PXE in your general network environment, but still
provides access to the automation environment without physical access.
When using the DOS automation environment, PXE provides an additional advantage:
multicast boot. This enables your PXE server to simultaneously boot up to 100
computers in a single session to perform automation work.
Although multicast imaging is supported in WinPE and Linux, multicast PXE booting is
not provided in WinPE and is not supported in Linux. That means that after each
computer has booted to automation, an imaging task can be multicast, but you cannot
use multicast to boot these computers.
An automation partition is a sector of your hard disk drive partitioned and managed by
DS. This partition contains the automation operating system and the files needed to
contact your Deployment Server, and must be present on each managed computer.
The biggest advantage to an embedded partition is that it does not require PXE, yet it
still enables you to boot into automation remotely. The biggest disadvantages to
embedded partitions are that they consume space on the drive, they require an existing
partition on the drive, and they must be manually installed from a disk on Linux and
Unix operating systems.
Another drawback, depending on your configuration, might be the fact that only one
automation operating system can be installed to a managed computer that is using an
automation partition. If you have tools that are supported only in DOS, this might limit
you to DOS for all automation tasks on a particular managed computer.
Automation partitions have an additional advantage in some configurations. Optionally,
you can create a different type of automation partition, called a hidden partition, to
store an image (or other files) locally.
This provides advantages in environments where computers need to be re-imaged often
or in environments where there is limited bandwidth or network connectivity. Since the
image is stored locally, the time needed to create and restore images is greatly reduced
and network traffic is significantly reduced as well.
Generally, the biggest drawback to boot media is that it forces you to physically access
the managed computer. However, if you are managing smaller numbers of computers or
do not plan to access the automation environment often, it might be a good choice.
Also, if you have employees with the ability and access to boot their own computers
using disks you provide, this could also be a good solution.
Boot media has some configuration limitations though. Deployment Solution is designed
to manage computers remotely, even in the automation mode, and several tasks and
jobs require access to both the production operating system and the automation
environment.
Example:
An imaging operation first captures configuration details from the production operating
system before booting to automation to capture the image. After imaging, this
configuration is restored.
Because of this, it is often difficult to schedule a job and coordinate booting the
managed computer to the right environment at the right time. If you assign a job which
Automation Boot Methods
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