What I feel should be added/fixed
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Ok so yes I am fairly new to FOG and maybe some of this can be handled in a different manner. I am also leaving out things others have said; like single snap-in to multiple machines.
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it would be nice to get more information on screens like the Hosts screen. Like for example have the Fog Service update the server with the IP address and perhaps the last time it was contacted etc.
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Following 1… have a column for Group on the hosts screen
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Have a column for “Date Added/Imaged/Last Imaged”
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Have a column for “Last Logged in User”
Basically have more information available on the host screen that which by default should SHOW ALL HOSTS and become like a “control room” kind of thing. -
Be able to see “Group” relationship once you are inside a host. Right now I have to pull up each group then look at “membership” and then look for a machine to see why it may be having issues. I should also be able to open a host, verify that is the host in question and then from that screen add it to the host. Currently from what I can tell you have to add group memberships on the “Show all Hosts” or the “Search Hosts” results.
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Further expanding… you should be able to pull up a host and see what settings were placed from the “GROUP” as opposed to directly on the host.
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Please update the Fog Service/Fog Client. These need serious overhaul to get rid of the issues I’ve seen around here (the forums). I myself am having issues with Win7 machines and printer deployment/snap-in deployment and “Interactive Services” pop-ups and interruptions to the user.
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Mask the password in the “Add to AD after imaging screen”
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For a deployment there should be a deployment flow screen that you can “inject” pieces into. For example you can say 1) Run X Script, 2) Join AD, 3) Run Y script, 4) install snap-in X etc. that way you can really tweak the process of deployment to hopefully get it 150% hands off in the process.
Thanks for listening.
If anyone sees something here I am wrong about or different way to achieve them already then please let me know.
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i agree to most of your suggestions!
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I too like your suggestions noviceuser.
I particularly agree with your first few points and would really ideally love it if all the screen default to a list of all hosts/groups/images. Don’t get me wrong the search function is definitely useful, especially when you have a heap of hosts/groups/images/etc but for me it would be more useful (and save me a few clicks) if that was the default view (or perhaps it should be configurable?).
I also really like your 9) - the idea of a preconfigured deployment ‘workflow’ is a winner!
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Wow I would never imagine that anyone would actually read this after so long.
I can say that since there was such a severe lack of an update/cahange in so long nor any word from the devs either my company and I realized it was time to look for an alternative. We ended up going with the new Windows Deployment Services and Windows Deployment Toolkit.
Let me first say that it is NOT the same HOWEVER… it is such a breath of fresh air that we don’t even care.You can do 9 above which makes things so awesome. You can essentially create a deployment where you become like an OEM install. You can still perform the same steps to make ‘snap-ins’ for software you want to install that is not msi format.
Essentially instead of needing an “image” of a machine you essentially build the image on the fly. So far our testing shows that it’s about the same time elapsed to do it either way. The reason is that the WDS doesn’t really need an image because you feed it drivers for a machine and part of the boot checks the hardware and matches the drivers up and goes. That in conjunction with the new USMT tool it really makes reimaging a breeze.
Our next step is to use another tool that I cannot remember the name for the life of me to manage updates and software version etc. For the user login stuff we have moved to Spiceworks which tracks that.
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ok… i agree with all those changes / requests… however i think 9 is currently possible. I believe you would need to modify the init.gz to include what you want done… so for example, i use debug-deploy to change the MTU size to 9198 to take advantage of jumbo frames then launch fog from the command line to start the image.
I am seriously considering modifying the init.gz to make this happen from the standard fog process of deployment.
from a programming point of view, I think it is possible to give it steps to do, you would just end up with a heavily customised fog installation which would be useless if you went to upgrade to support new hardware / software…