-2

I'm new to being a sysadmin so I am still learning a LOT but there has been this one thing I have not been able to figure out.

I work at a small studio using about 50/50 Win/OSX machines, I'm looking for a simple solution to deploying software to all the computers from only one (like download both the WIN and OSX installers onto our NAS and deploying the proper package to each computer).

Is there such a tool that can do this from a WIN 7/8.1 or OSX environment or do I have to manage the two separately.

It's asking a lot but if anyone could throw together a quick guide that explains how to do this (either combined or for each OS) like I'm five, that would be wonderful.

ALSO: in the instance that I am installing an After Effects plugin for example, and it requires a serial key to continue the installation, how is this managed without having to log into every computer remotely and copy/paste the serials in?

HopelessN00b
  • 53,795
  • 33
  • 135
  • 209
Marcus Kulik
  • 7

3 Answers3

1

This site's format works best for specific problems and this is a very broad question that I recommend you breaking down into parts.

Start with figuring out how to deploy the After Effects plugin without providing the key. Every application is different, but you are looking for documentation on a 'silent' or 'unattended' installation. Maybe the vendor doesn't even provide for this. We would need specifics to assist you.

Then, once you have solved that figure out how to do it at scale for Windows and for OS X. (Unfortunately, I am not aware of any solution capable of both.)

Aaron Copley
  • 12,525
  • 5
  • 47
  • 68
1

If it were so easy. I do not know of any Windows-based OSX* deployment systems, and I do not think that the Apple ones will deploy Windows.

You could create a "base" image with your fully installed/updated Windows 7/8.1/OSX machine and then use something like Clonezilla (via Live USB or PXEboot if you're feeling fancy) to clone an image of the machine to the NAS to restore to each machine. This isn't reliable, however, and your machines are likely to have different hardware combinations.

* SCCM 2012 with a third-party toolkit such as Parallels Mac Management would do this, but for 50 machines I don't know if you could handle the cost/setup.

Your plugin question would be better asked as another questions.

tombull89
  • 2,964
  • 8
  • 41
  • 52
1

Microsoft has a software suite known as System Center Configuration Manager, or SCCM.

SCCM 2012 has support for managing OS X clients. There is no automatic process for installing the SCCM client onto OS X systems, so that part is a manual process, but once that client is installed, you can build and deploy software/applications via SCCM to both OS X and Windows.

I've never used SCCM for deploying OS X software, but it works really well for deploying software to Windows systems.

AndreVSWorld
  • 66
  • 4