Dell Kace. Anybody use it?

[Andy.]

My Systems manager is off on holiday for three weeks and I don't want a project to get stuck for the duration.

I know there are a fair number of IT'ers here, does anybody use Kace to manage software/ image distribution? I need to pick some brains.

Cheers,
Andy

 

[cava83]

Dell are really promoting this at the moment. The account manager and sales team are really being pro-active but unfortunately I have not used it. So cannot help.

Mr Knight might be able to help, sure he's played with it.

​G

 

[Andy.]

I spent the day playing with it and am pretty impressed. It's a powerful bit of kit and blows our old one out the water. We've had it in house for nearly 8 months and have done absolutely nothing with it as the guy who is responsible has been too busy.......

I'm just a bit lost and hoped somebody here had used it to manage a reasonable sized office/ flex positions etc.

 

[*JimmyJ*]

Yep I use it, still learning it. Might be able to help. What's up?

 

[Cookie]

What is it? Dell's answer to SCCM?

 

[*JimmyJ*]

Pretty much yeah, software and os deployment, asset management. And some other bits and pieces. I'm going on a training course soon so I'll be to report back with some answers.

 

[Andy.]

Cheers Jimmy.
I was just wanting to confirm that my understanding of how you should use it was correct.

Imaging
- create a basis image without anything installed other than Windows
- I still can't work out how to roll this out to production workstations so that they keep their original name (important for Applications which are linked to NETBIOS name)

Software installation
- I'm not clear why under Inventory you have a Software tab that you can upload the installers to
- I'm planning on using the deployment section for creating all my software installation packages. Zip the package with a .cmd file used to run the installers, move shortcuts and change rights on files/ folders etc. By attaching the packages to labels (linked to LDAP), I can automate the software roll out to the different departments. Is that the correct way of doing it?
- My sys admin was planning on using the scripting section for creating the installation packages with a check at the beginning of each script to check whether the software was already installed. That seems a bit backwards to me, when you have the deployment section.

Basically, I need to create a plan of attack for imaging workstations and rolling out the software to them... I can find a way of doing it, but am not certain that it is the most efficient way!

Any tips welcome!

 

[Don]

Wouldn't it be using the nic and linking a netbios name to the machine (like sccm)...so if ever you wanted to interrogate the machine id...it would be via the nic amongst other things.