IT managers and PC assemblers alike are always looking at the bottom line when it comes to deploying PCs. SDD, a leader in the Southern African technology supply chain, has found a solution in disk cloning using Symantec's Ghost, a disk and/or partition copying program.
Disk cloning has come a long way since the early days of DOS when a manager used the XCOPY command to move entire directory trees from one computer to another. Today's technology enables managers to create fully standardised hardware and software environments, based on a single PC installation that has already been fully configured and tested, therefore, dramatically reducing PC roll out to as little as five minutes per PC saving the company time and money.
Jan Strydom, assembly manager at SDD, explains that at the beginning of last year, the company saw the need for an image casting tool to enable it to roll out 1 400 machines for a large and valued client.
"We evaluated several products, but when Symantec demonstrated Symantec Ghost's features and abilities, we believed that they had the best solution," Strydom says. "We now use Symantec Ghost to do the image casting on all our configurations, including Xylo, IBM, Compaq and HP machines. In a little less than two years since we've had the product, we've disk cloned more than 20 000 machines."
Strydom continues to say that apart from the reliability and ease of use of the product, it is an enormous time saver which equates to our productivity bottom line. "In the past it took an hour and 15 minutes to configure a machine, with Symantec Ghost a large image takes a maximum of 20 minutes while an average sized image takes between six and seven minutes to configure."
SDD has three assembly lines, with 30 to 35 machines per line, so the combined saving in time is phenomenal.
"When we ran the first image cast we thought that it was corrupt because it worked so quickly - in one minute and 58 seconds!" Strydom says, "Since using the new cloning technology we have never had a come back in terms of corrupt software.
"Symantec Ghost is an integral part of our production line and it gives us a competitive edge because we can get machines out to our customers much quicker.
"During a roll out, we are frequently under enormous pressure to get the job out because we are at the end of the production line and cannot afford to battle with software dumping. We simply need to be able to install the software and put the machines back in their boxes."
Shahil Kanjee, Symantec product manager at SDD, says another advantage of Symantec Ghost is that it works on all platforms, including NetWare Server and Linux.
"We recently did an image cast for a big client, with 4 Gigabytes of image because it was an OS2 application. In total, we did 4 000 machines in record time, this would not have been possible without Symantec Ghost," he concludes.
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Symantec Ghost
Symantec Ghost is the industry's premier tool for PC rollout, hardware migration, and disaster recovery. It leverages the proven cost-effective process of cloning a large number of PCs within a networked enterprise environment and extends those benefits even further by including remote management and post-cloning configuration capabilities. This process saves time for system administrators from handling repetitive tasks such as downloading image files to multiple workstations. In addition, Symantec Ghost safeguards applications and settings during the reconfiguration process and provides a monitor system that ensures the networked machines function properly.
SDD
Siltek Distribution Dynamics (SDD), the focused IT company in the Siltek technology supply chain group, is South Africa's largest broad-based distributor of information technology. SDD encourages black empowerment opportunities and is the partner of choice of several leading vendors. It distributes a wide range of 'best of breed' hardware and software products, as well as peripherals, components and consumables. SDD configures branded hardware and builds-to-order Xylo, its own range of PCs. With a backbone of 429 staff, SDD has branches in Gauteng, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, East London, Durban, Bloemfontein and Nelspruit. Outside South Africa, the company has partnerships in Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe.
Symantec
Symantec, a world leader in Internet security technology, provides a broad range of content and network security solutions to individuals and enterprises. The company is a leading provider of virus protection, risk management, Internet content and e-mail filtering, remote management and mobile code detection technologies to customers. Headquartered in Cupertino, Calif., Symantec has worldwide operations in more than 33 countries.