[BESAdmin-Announcements] BigFix OS Deployment for Windows Announced!

[Announcements for BES Administrators]

Dear BigFix administrators,

BigFix R&D is pleased to announce general availability of BigFix OS Deployment for Windows. We are very excited to offer a Windows 7 migration product, providing:
*             Hardware Independent Imaging-deploy an image from one computer to many different types of computers
*             Support for either static IP addressing or DHCP services
*             Support for standard Microsoft image format and toolkit
*             Quick conformance with corporate standards when migrating endpoints
*             Integrated user data and client configuration retention during system migrations
*             Minimal network impact with options to spread tasks across known time frames

Here are the critical links:
USER'S GUIDE: http://support.bigfix.com/product/documents/OSD/OSD_Users_Guide.pdf
WIN7 MIGRATION GUIDE: http://support.bigfix.com/product/documents/OSD/OSD_Windows_7_Migration_Guide.pdf
RELEASE NOTES: http://support.bigfix.com/product/documents/OSD/OSD_Release_Notes.pdf
KB ARTICLE (SERVICE ACCOUNTS): http://support.bigfix.com/cgi-bin/kbdirect.pl?id=1265
KB ARTICLE (MASTER IMAGES): http://support.bigfix.com/cgi-bin/kbdirect.pl?id=1266

If you would like to evaluate this new capability, please contact your sales representative for additional information.

FAQ:
===================================================================================
Is it part of the SLM bundle?
No, it is still an optional extra. We expect product bundling to change in the next year as Tivoli integration activities proceed, and we do not want to confuse the situation.

What about Acronis Snap Deploy (ASD)?
We are no longer selling ASD and would like to encourage customers who purchased it to migrate to this solution for their desktop migration needs. Acronis-using customers with current subscriptions are eligible for free upgrade to the MDT based tool.

What about support for 'bare metal' deployments?
Currently we can only do migrations; we require a running system with a BigFix agent to initiate migration. We will be pursuing support for imaging a new system without any operating system in 2011.

Where do I start?
Read the User's Guide for download links to the prerequisites and MDTBundleCreator tool; download these components, configure the parameters.ini file, run the tool, and upload the bundle into the BigFix OS Deployment for Windows dashboard.

Can we redistribute the bundle or the MDT source media to make setup even easier?
No, Microsoft expressly prohibits redistribution of these components.

Thank you!

-- The BigFix Product Team

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