I have an ERP system that requires a local installation on a Windows Terminal Server to operate properly. Right now I pay for each TS that I have the vendor install the software on directly. However, every time an upgrade happens they take all of my Terminal Servers down for hours. This happens at least once a month. Obviously this is not ideal. As a solution to this issue (since we cannot install the software ourselves), we are doing the following process:
- Have the ERP vendor install the software on one Terminal Server.
- Clone/Sysprep that Terminal Server.
- Deploy the clone to multiple physical and virtual boxes (with new names, etc.)
This allows us to keep the Terminal Servers running during and upgrade, it keeps the vendor off of our live systems, and it reduces our costs. However, it makes a lot of manual work for us and during that time we cannot use the ERP system since the database has been updated but the client has not been updated.
I am looking for an automation solution that could handle this process. Obviously I would like the whole things to be automated and scheduled but even partial automation would be great (or a set of solutions that all work towards automation). I'm not afraid of scripting or buying something. Here are the areas the solution needs to handle:
- Scheduled imaging of a server.
- Sysprep of the image.
- Installation of the image as a clone on multiple systems (preferably multicast).
- Basic server setup (Name, IP, join to domain, etc.)
Right now we are using Windows Server 2008 64-bit as our Terminal Server. At some point we will need to upgrade to R2. We are also using roaming profiles so there shouldn't be an issue with profiles on the boxes. We are using a mix of Hyper-V and physical boxes.
If you need more information, please let me know. As I stated above, I'll buy something if it will do the job. If you do know of a solution, the more information you provide, the better. Thanks for your help.