UK-based Advanced Network Technologies and Netrunna SA have launched Netrunna, a locally developed imaging, recovery, licensing compliance and pre-boot deployment application, in Johannesburg.
Netrunna runs on Windows and Linux, says Gary Goldie, channel manager, Netrunna SA. Netrunna uses an unallocated disk partition that is out of reach of viruses to contain the image of the system, including software platform, settings, applications and configurations. Network traffic only occurs with updates of differences, not of the entire image. Updates to the image are replicated to clients via a multi-cast protocol.
Netrunna claims 80% quicker deployments, 90%-95% quicker (incremental) image creation and a third of the disk space of "traditional" image storage applications. It competes with Symantec Ghost and Microsoft`s Windows toolkit. David Thomas, ICT manager at St Olave`s Grammar School in the UK, said in a statement that the former only provided some of the LAN management requirements of the school, while the latter was complex, expensive and needed extensive tailoring.
"Whether you are building a new generation of desktops or deploying updates, patches and new applications, Netrunna saves time, money and uses less disk space than competitive products," says Kevin van Heerden, director: R&D at Netrunna.
The threat of viruses and other business continuity risks are alleviated with this application. Netrunna features rapid re-deployment functionality and claims to ensure that, in the event of a disaster, desktops and servers "can be recreated in a fraction of the time it would take using normal methods."
No need for anti-virus
Goldie adds this startling differentiator to his pitch: "Netrunna also removes the need for anti-virus software because its pre-boot self-heal functionality reinstates pre-defined desktop standards every time the machine boots up," he says.
The Johannesburg launch demonstrated the corruption of a PC by destroying the Windows 2000 file system and Microsoft Office installations. Upon reboot, it was recovered in less than two minutes - with losing any of the data in files created during the demo. Also at the launch, a brand new notebook computer was plugged in, booted from the network and within six minutes was configured with Windows 2000- and Microsoft Office. Mandrake 9.1 took slightly less time.
Netrunna`s Central Management Console (CMC) module allows IT personnel to carry out a comprehensive hardware and software audit, even with employee changes to configurations.
Netrunna was developed by a group of South Africans, some of whom are now based in the UK. The road show moves to Cape Town next week and to Europe after that.
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