On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 10:49 AM, Michael DeHaan <[email protected]> wrote:
> Robert Lazzurs wrote: > > On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 16:40, Rainer Duffner <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > >> Michael DeHaan schrieb: > >> > >>> We don't really have a vested interest in making Windows physical > >>> deployments easy to deploy. > >>> > >>> > > > > Hello, > > > > So just to add my 2c in... > > > > This statement worries me, I would suggest while we as a community > > should encourage the use of FOSS operating systems do we really want > > to take an RMS style view on this? Cobbler from my POV should be a > > generic systems management and will work best if it can document and > > deploy your whole infrastructure, re my earlier comments about > > upgrading iLO cards and network devices from Cobbler. > > > > Windows is not going to be going away from the data centre any time > > soon and while I believe everything should be virtual unless there is > > a good reason not to be not everyone has that view. > > > > Ok, I'll explain this further. > > Cobbler is growing rather fast... VERY fast, and as it grows, I want to > make sure the quality of the application everywhere is the best it can be. > > There are a lot of things left undone, and various rough corners that > still need to be polished. SUSE, Network Config, and Debian/Ubuntu support > are all very recent and in varying degrees of being finished. We're not > even packaged for all of them. There are still things that can't be done > in the web application, etc. > Lots of expansion, but we can do more to refine those things. (Does koan > work on all of these platforms yet for virt AND replacement? Etc). > If we expand too fast, we forget to go back and fill in that detail. > > I seem to encounter a lot of users that /do/ clone physical windows > systems, so I am not sure doing scripted installs is the answer. > Further, the RIS stuff > does not seem to be consistent across all OSes . An approach based on > cloning those systems may be better in the end because that also allows > working systems to be deployed .. not just empty shells that just have > the Base OS on them. > > I think we need to take a step back for a bit and focus on the core of > Cobbler, close out lots of bugs and RFEs, ensure our new distribution > support > is first-class on the level with our others, and make sure the web > application has parity with the command line. > > Yes, all of these things /can/ be done in parallel, but as we add new > arms to our octopus, we must make sure we go back and add the proverbial > suckers > to those arms. > > Perfectionism is /not/ a goal, but I do want to make sure we don't > spread out too fast and leave things unfinished. > > Regarding the cloning of physical systems, a while back Andrew Brown > contributed a live image that would clone (a bit slowly) a physical > system using cobbler to network > deploy the clone image. I think it might be interesting to try to > resurrect and supercharge that idea. This way we could be sure to deploy > Windows systems > that /also/ had their software installed, without having to also teach > Cobbler about Windows domain automation. We say Clonezilla and other > analogs is hard to deploy, > why not write a better solution? > > And, of course, where virtualization is possible, I think that /IS/ a > better route. We should encourage more use of that technology and also > enhance our > capabilities there where it makes sense. > > --Michael > > > Michael- What you layout is the best aproach, I work in many windows enviroments and RIS sucks, so we have always depend on imgaging to roll out new Windows desktops to servers. If the brialiant coders could figure out a way to have cobbler clone an existing system and redeploy it anyware, that would satisfy the Windows admins I know.
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