Shell South Africa has standardised its IT workstation replication process with Ghost Software`s system replication tool, Ghost. Distributed in South Africa by Server Tools, Ghost was selected as the solution of choice based on recommendations from parent company Shell UK.
LAN group leader Howard Kerr says the giant oil and petrochemical company has developed a customised Windows 95 desktop configuration installed on Shell workstations worldwide. In South Africa, the company intends to bring 1 500 workstations to standard, a project that began in October last year and is expected to continue until year-end.
"The standard configuration is designed to give the company a consistent look and feel irrespective of location," says Kerr. "Consistency is important in maintaining the global corporate image of the company, keeping abreast of approved technological advances across the organisation."
Shell employed a number of different processes prior to its standardisation rollout. At the Cape Town head office, base machines were configured with the Shell desktop before snapshots were saved to the Ghost server. New machines were then cloned from the server and were used to update the original snapshots with the tested versions. Final snapshots were created from the cloned machines and "burned" onto CD for nationwide distribution.
"CD snapshots are best suited for remote cloning when server cloning is impractical," adds Kerr. "They are portable, robust, and can be used to clone a machine in the shortest possible time."
The project employed a 10-man IT team, including a five-man specialised core team to create the master configuration snapshots for distribution.
"Implementation is straightforward, and requires minimal staffing," says Kerr. "Given a stable hardware platform, we can Ghost a remote machine and have it up and running in 15 minutes."
Kerr adds that ease of use and ease of deployment are the two biggest pluses of Ghost.
"Rather than install and configure multiple machines using conventional methods, Ghost eliminates the chore of manually setting up and testing each individual workstation, which is critical in an organisation as large and dispersed as ours," he says.
The rollout is Shell`s first attempt at standardising its IT infrastructure in South Africa and further abroad.
"We`ve taken as many licences as we need, and won`t hesitate to purchase more as and when the need arises," concludes Kerr. "Ghost has proven itself, and is now the standard for all future large-scale software upgrade projects in the country."
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