Schedule the deployment of different image (OS) to a same group of computers.

[Rick_CH]

I work in the Engineers School in Switzerland. We now use FOG. But we have special needs that is no implemented in FOG (but exist in Ghost):

One example, Tuesday at 10AM a need to deploy Windows 7 on a group of hosts. In the afternoon at 1PM, I need to deploy Linux on the same group of computers. Then the next day at 8 AM, I want to deploy Windows 2008 srv. I’d like to do this automatically.

I want to schedule all these differents task for a automatic deployment. But with FOG, it is not possible. One example:I am on Monday and I create a scheduled task with a group “Win7” (that contain relation host name <-> OS win7) for Tuesday 10 AM, then immediatly i create a second task, scheduled on Tuesday 1PM, with the group “Linux” (that contain the same hosts as in the group “Win7”).

The group “Linux” contains the host’s name, but the assignation host name <-> OS is on Win7. I must change in the “LINUX” group the OS assignation between hosts and OS. I modify it for the linux OS. But now the problem: FOG changes all the host<->OS assignation. It breaks the assignement host name <-> OS win7 in the group win7.

Currently, if the last schedule contains Linux OS, when the first scheduled task starts (Tuesday 10AM), the task deploys a Linux and not the Win7.
The raison is: in FOG DB, it is only a static assignation between a host name and a OS (and not between a group<->OS).

One solution: possiblity to create one group with the name “Linux” for example and another group with the name “Win7”. In these 2 groups the host members can be exactly the same. So in the scheduled task DB, you have a association between a group and a OS (an not only a host with a OS). Or to add a record OS type in the scheduled tasks database. This record contain the OS type when the task was created.