BITS based imaging process

Abstract

Many universities use Symantec Ghost to image PCs in their campus computer labs. However, issues related to network traffic, multicasting, and file size create numerous difficulties when transferring image files.Tim Leamy at University of California, Davis (UC Davis) created a system using Microsoft's Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) to transfer Ghost images to PC. Allan Chen and Rob Smith have adapted the system to work at Stanford.The system uses BITS to transfer Symantec Ghost .gho and .ghs files to a FreeDOS partition on the client PC. The machine then rebuilds itself at the next reboot locally, making for extremely fast imaging times.BITS, which utilizes standard HTTP protocols, runs in the background using available network bandwidth. This leaves the workstation available for use by students. Because the file transfer is via HTTP, it works over all types of networking and is very robust. The image files themselves are stored on a standard web server. Actual downtime of the client is generally less than 10 minutes.Stanford University has adapted the UC Davis solution in a number of ways. The majority of the work has been in dealing with larger (14GB) image sizes and integrating the scripts and utilities into the Stanford environment. Scripting functionality has remained the same, though many of the actual scripts have been modified.This presentation will examine the original impetus and implementation at UC Davis, and Stanford's experiences in modifying that process to fit our needs.