Attachmate announces extended solution for complete PC lifecycle management

Continuing to support customers with an integrated solution to deploy, update, track and support their PC assets, Attachmate Corporation today announced the availability of WinINSTALL 9.0, a unified PC lifecycle management solution that allows IT administrators to define process workflows that dynamically manage desktop and notebook PCs from purchase to retirement.

New capabilities, now available through WinINSTALL 9.0's centralised management console, allow for enhanced vulnerability management, optimised management of remote and mobile PCs, and the ability to seamlessly integrate any third-party remote control or help-desk solution for flexible control of IT investments.

"Constant organisational change is placing a tremendous burden on today's IT departments. As costs rise and resources shrink, administrators must somehow manage the fallout while providing measurable business value to their organisations," said Eric Varness, vice-president of marketing at Attachmate.

"Attachmate WinINSTALL 9.0 provides IT administrators with a flexible, comprehensive tool for managing this growing organisational complexity and allows them to embrace technological advancements without putting the business at risk."

The Attachmate WinINSTALL product family is used by more than 5 000 companies worldwide to institute and maintain desktop standards, as well as to automate the installation of operating systems, content and application load sets to networked and remote PCs.

With WinINSTALL 9.0, IT administrators can integrate a series of complex PC management tasks into automated workflows. By chaining together isolated, but often related tasks, more sophisticated processes like OS migration, PC hardware deployment and disaster recovery can be dealt with much quicker and promote re-use.

"With the complexity of the PC environment today, IT organisations have to think about process and how to pull together fragmented steps through automation. For example, operating system deployment isn't just about pushing an image down to the desktop. It involves up-front asset inventory, policy definition, network configuration, hardware compatibility, patching, application packaging and deployment, and restoring the personality of the PC," said Varness.

With WinINSTALL, IT administrators can now automate a wide range of processes resulting in a more efficient IT staff, more productive end-users and reduced overall cost of PC ownership for the organisation.

WinINSTALL 9.0 provides organisations with centralised control of the threat management process through proactive end-to-end enterprise-class vulnerability assessment and remediation management, combining a state-of-the-art scanning engine with a workflow-driven PC lifecycle management system.

By integrating patch management into the management console, customers no longer have to purchase and learn separate tools for patch management and other PC management capabilities.

Enterprises can efficiently manage the entire vulnerability assessment and remediation process within a geographically dispersed and complex environment.

WinINSTALL 9.0 offers a new option for delivering application packages to managed PCs. The two-phase software installation delivers the software package to the workstation in phase one and automatically installs the new software from the local drive in phase two.

Two-phase installation, when combined with WinINSTALL's Checkpoint Restart and Bandwidth Throttling features, aims to update PCs in environments with challenged networks. For example, remote offices with low-bandwidth connections, low-speed Internet connections, VPN laptop dial-in links and wireless links to mobile computers.

Two-phase installation allows customers to isolate package delivery from the installation process, regardless of the speed or reliability of the network.

WinINSTALL 9.0 introduces the ability to launch third-party applications by right-mouse clicking on a managed PC directly from within the WinINSTALL console.

This functionality is designed to integrate with an organisation's preferred remote control or help-desk solution. Therefore, IT administrators can use standard remote control solutions, such as Microsoft's Remote Desktop Connection, VNC (freeware), or Symantec's pcAnywhere, directly from within WinINSTALL, eradicating the need to learn a new remote control technology or replace existing solutions.

WinINSTALL assists customers preparing for Microsoft Vista deployment by implementing processes around automation within their environment today, resulting in a clear snapshot of the current state of hardware and software readiness for Vista. The re-use of these processes is not limited to only Microsoft Vista.

During a phased OS migration, PC operating environments are rarely homogeneous, so the application of these tools should accommodate Microsoft Vista, and also Windows XP and Windows 2000.

With careful planning and application of the right technology, the strategies implemented for a zero-touch operating system migration can be reused for everyday PC lifecycle management tasks.

For a free whitepaper on how WinINSTALL drives Vista readiness, visit www.attachmate.com/en-US/Products/PC+Lifecycle+Management/vista-readiness-and-wininstall.htm.

WinINSTALL 9.0 is currently available. For additional information, including details on how to purchase, visit http://www.attachmate.com/en-US/Products/PC+Lifecycle+Management/.