0717: Proof of Concept

 

Delay:

There was a delay of over two weeks while we waited for NTS to agree on a time to monitor the impact of a test deployment on the network at large.

Results:

I have no concrete numbers on how things went, but there were 13 machines in the test. The first machine started at 3:10pm and reached a logon prompt at 3:37pm. The image was a base install of Windows XP with Service Pack 2, the size of the image on the server is pretty small, but in the grand scheme the amount of overall data I don’t think is as important, as that will only impact the length of time.

One of the problems presented by Ghost in the past has been how it pushes the image out using broadcasts. Historically an average Ghost session would create an overwhelming amount of traffic on the network which would at times overwhelm switches and other attached network devices.

The test deployment peaked at 97mpbs over a 100mbps switched network, there were little to no broadcasts related to the deployment, not floods, and the switch CPU’s were not overloaded. All-in-All I would say that things seemed to go quite well and I think that RIS is a very favorable solution that is easy to setup, integrates well with our AD (for obvious reasons), and is friendly on the network.

For the curious:

The RIS server itself is a Dell Optiplex 745, the drive where the images are stored is a Maxtor OneTouch USB drive, connected to a Netgear 100mpbs switch, certainly not the optimal hardware, but good enough for a test run.