Topic: server 2003/8 + RIS vs *nix + unattended
Next week I'll have hundreds of machines with various hardware configs to refresh/update. These machines are and will be running XPSP2 and I've been trying to find out the best way to do this. I'm going to configure a server from scratch especially for this task and from reading various forums and other web pages it seems like I have two main types of server I could configure
Windows Server 2003/2008 using RIS
or
Linux/BSD using unattended
I've been googling around but I've been unable to find a proper comparison of these two methods. I should point out that I am proficient with windows but I'm certainly no windows expert and that I'm probably more experienced with Linux although I do realise that some tasks can be a lot easier to achieve under Windows if you're a newb. I do prefer open source app but I am not so biased that I would rule out using MS RIS or another proprietary solution if it is the superior solution.
If anyone if familiar with both server setups could you please tell me:
1) Which is the easiest to setup and maintain for someone who is proficient in both unix and windows but has never set up an RIS or unattended server?
2) Which setup is the fastest/ offers the optimal usage of available network bandwidth when multicasting. I would imagine this would come down to whick kernel has the best implementation of DHCP and SMB?? Server 2003? 2008? Linux? FreeBSD? It would be great to see some figures to compare the different OS/app setups ie size of install image, number of machines imaged and time took on an identical hardware setup.
3) Does RIS offer any important features missing from unattended or vice versa? GUI's are nice but not essential- far as I'm concerned speed and reliability are much more important.
4) Any other pros/cons I should be aware of when comparing the two?
I would certainly be prepared to put a bit more effort into configuring unattended on platform X if it has long-term advantages.
I'm sorry if this has already been discussed on these forums, I couldn't find it. If there is a better forum to be asking these questions then please let me know!
Thanks for your help!
dan
Last edited by danboid (2008-07-01 04:23:57)