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Take Control of Your Enterprise Computers
Combine Altiris IT Lifecycle Management and Wise Package Studio Professional suites to get full control of your systems.
by Danielle Ruest and Nelson Ruest

September 9, 2004

Altiris 6 IT Lifecycle Management and Wise Package Studio Professional 5.21 are built around three main themes: asset, client, and server management. The products provide a comprehensive overview of the product lifecycle through each theme.

For example, server management begins with the purchasing phase where Asset Management can help store contracts and identify hardware when it arrives at the loading dock. From then on, the machine can be staged remotely, configured properly, delivered to the network, then patched, monitored, and even retired from the network through this set of tools (see Figure 1). Meanwhile, you can use Altiris products to manage and resolve problem tickets as well as service-level agreements. With the addition of the Wise Package Studio Suite (Altiris purchased Wise Solutions in December 2003), Altiris adds full software provisioning functionality. This makes the Altiris solution focus on four themes instead of three. It's surprising that the marketing material hasn't been updated to include this.

Installation of the Lifecycle suite is straightforward and the suite is available in six languages. Altiris begins by first installing a Notification Server, which is the core of the Altiris system. Of note, you should choose the Custom install instead of the Default install because by default everything is installed on the C drive, which might cause you to run out of space on the system disk. You have to do this now because the Notification Server setup determines where all other components are installed. Once the Notification Server is installed, it needs to connect to a Microsoft SQL Server database. This can be version 7 or 2000 or it can be the Microsoft SQL Server Desktop Engine (MSDE). Wise Package Studio Professional also has the same requirements, so it is highly recommended to use SQL Server 2000.

In large networks, this installation could even be clustered on machines that are independent of the operation of either Wise or Altiris products. This will provide better scalability. The connection of the Notification Server to the database and the database creation process is one of the best we've seen, taking you through four simple steps. When the connection is established, the startup screen tells you how to proceed. You move on to the Configuration tab and Upgrade/Install Additional Solutions. Select the solution level you need and install it.

Oddly enough, the Altiris installation consists of three CDs, but all installations are downloaded from the Internet by default. This ensures you install the latest copies of everything. In lab environments without Internet connectivity you can change the installation source through a configuration screen. Also of note is that this installation mode does not support the installation of any Wise components except the Altiris Connector for Wise, which should not be installed until the Wise components have been fully installed and configured. For the installation of the Wise components, you need to use the all-in-one Wise installation file. Once again, it is best to download—though the download is not automatic if you have a CD—because Wise frequently provides updates to its products.