Bulk Provisioning

[Paul]

Hello Everyone,

These days I had to update all my server's software and I was wondering if it would be possible to be able to do this kind of provisioning via Mobile PC Monitor.

Consider this scenario:

You have 10 servers that have a variety of roles / features installed. And you decide to add a new piece of software you just acquired that adds a SaaS managing application in all your offices.

You create a Mobile PC Monitor Patch that contains steps (just like rules with conditions and actions):

1. If IIS Server is not installed on local server:

- Install IIS Server

- If Restart Is Required

- Restart Machine

2. If Website "ACME Corp. Manager" is not installed in IIS:

- Create application pool "ACME Corp. Manager App Pool"

- Set application pool "ACME Corp. Manager App Pool" functionality level at .NET FW 4.0

- Create website "ACME Corp. Manager" with "ACME Corp. Manager App Pool"

- Extract patch files at c:\www

- Start Website

3. Notify patch result

Then assign this patch to a group of computers and watch it propagate in real time!

Also a lot of features are not already implemented into Mobile PC Monitor such as IIS website creation but it can be done via powershell scripts so a patch should be able to:

1. Execute any PC Monitor command such as Shutdown, Restart, Logoff, GetEventLog, GetPublicIPAddress, ActiveDirectorySearch, SendNotification, RunPluginCommand, RegisterPlugin, MaintenanceModeControl
   
   
2. Embed files into the patch
   
   
3. Run Powershell scripts
   
   
4. Modify Registry (can be done by powershell I know but if it can be done via PC Monitor, why not?)
   

Another scenario:

You've been assigned to install 50 servers that contain Mobile PC Monitor, DNS Server installed and configured and Terminal Services installed and configure. You create an unattended install of your server operating system to include Mobile PC Monitor to autoinstall and configure by executing a registry script. This will set it's username, password and group.

Then you just install the operating system on your virtual machines / servers, and watch them configure themselves.

Any feedback on my idea is greatly appreciated!

Paul.

[digbyp]

Johnii has just rolled out the latest version of POTS, incorporating features from PCM API 3

I now need to roll-out to 120+ computers. To do this, one needs to

1) stop PCM service

2) download zip

3) extract zip to correct path

4) Start PCM service

I think the only way to do this is with GP?

[Paul]

The only way (at this moment) to do this is by Group Policy if all your computers are in an Active Directory environment by having startup scripts.

If we would have this sort of Bulk Provisioning system all of this work would have been replace with a 10 minute job on a patch.

Deploying updates to plugins, that's another great scenario where this feature could be used.

[Cptrico]

Hi Guys,

I agree that GP is properly the easiest way or a powershell script remoting to all servers and changeing the version.

What would be cool I think is to have a plugin repo of plugins available in a section of PCM manager. There you could select what plugins your wanted, basically what is there now just extended a bit. They are then downloaded and you could set an option to auto update in the future just like PCM or set it to manual.

It of course requires that PCM want to have this download traffic on their servers, they have the zip packages already so!?

And to have this feature, people making their own plugins would have to join the community and upload it to repo to benefit. But we all do that already.

Cheers.

[Paul]

Ofcourse having a public repository of plugins would be a great idea, combined with the current PC Monitor Group Policy you would be able to choose which groups to download and install a set of plugins. However this can be further extended to the point of Provisioning computers and automating maintenance tasks.

The part with high traffic loads on the server due to patch file sizes can be easily solved by enabling this feature only on the Enterprise Servers and providing a limited trial on the cloud ones. After all I'm not sure if large enterprises would even consider sending to foreign server scripts that contain sensitive information like private keys, encription passwords, user tables and so on.

In few words you are giving a system administrator the power to perform complex (pre-configured) maintenance tasks from his phone while he is on the go to any computer even road-warriors (computers that are not in intranet).

Edit: Can you think of any other usages of this solution? If so, please post them here.

Edited September 28, 2012 by Paul

[digbyp]

Wait for Marius response. But I believe that an some sort enhancement for plugins is on the 'to do' list. But forget now exactly what it is that the team have in mind.

[Paul]

Usually software companies prioritize features that are highly requested by a large amount of people, that's why I'm asking everyone to post their stories and ideas on this topic to attract attention of the development team.

Also referring people to this topic and asking them to post feedback about the idea will only increase it's chances to get implemented.

So, let's see how many persons think this would be a good feature for Mobile PC Monitor.

Edited September 28, 2012 by Paul

[Cesar Lacerda]

A um ano utilizo a versão Enterprise para controlar 119 maquinas ( 9 Servidores e 110 pcs ) distribuidas entre 8 empresas. Como não sei programar ( Powershell ou C# ) seria muito interessante essas implementações no sistema.

Edited October 2, 2012 by Cesar Lacerda