RIS server hardware requirements?

[Cabales]

I'm looking into a RIS solution for our enterprise and I'm trying to determine if I will need additonal hardware or if I can get by with what we have now.

A brief description of our environment: We have 7 offices located in Florida with the exception of 1 in Atlanta, all of them are connected via MPLS. In our two largest offices we running a fiber connected SAN, but the other 5 offices all use local drives for each server. We are running one domain, but each office is on it's own subnet, with the 2 largest offices encompassing multiple subnets.

What I'd like to do is ensure that each office is hosting it's own RIS images so there will be nothing being pulled across the WAN. I'd prefer to do this without adding any additonal servers if possible, but getting new drives, RAM, ect... is ok. Is this reasonable? Should I be installing RIS on one of our Domain Controllers, they have 2GB of RAM and dual 3.5ghz processors, in each office? I know RIS needs it's own partition, but what is a reasonable size for the partition, assuming I will not be using more than 3 or 4 images at each office, but leaving room for some growth? I'm curious as to the bandwidth that RIS takes up as well, is it reasonable to reimage a machine or two during the day assuming a 100mb LAN (We have GB backbones in several of the offices, but not GB to the desktop, and some of the older offices still only have 100MB backbones.)?

I've found this site to be extremely helpful while I've been researching RIS, and I've spent some time working on creating an Unattended Installation DVD using the guide here. I'm beginning to build a test RIS box now, but I've got to turn in some budget numbers by the end of next week, and I want to do my best to have an accurate idea of what I'll need to implement RIS sometime next year. My guess is diskspace is all I'm really going to need, but I thought I would ask here. Thanks for all your help and for providing a wonderful resource.

[Br4tt3]

Hi!

I strongly encourage u to:

1. Create a script that will install and configure the native RIS component for u in an unattended fashion..

2. The RIS box mostly will be dependent on disk I/O and network connectivity during client installations.. it will not consume loads and loads of RAM or CPU resources... no need to worry as long as u have reasonable RAID controller in the machine..

3. To save space on the RIS machines and not spending hours on wiered riprep errors, USE a flat RIS setup... better, safer and all other superlatives IMHO!!!

4. Consumation of network bandwidth u say... 2 clients a day on a 100Mbit cable, no worries....

5. Will you be using Win2003 or Win2000 RIS? I would recommend 2003..

6. If u r gonna place ur RIS component on a DC, be sure that u (lik u mentioned) have a seperate drive volume for that component... u dont wanna have the SIS (Single Instance Storage) process running thorugh ur ntds logs or something

7. For performance boosts, I guess all u can do to pimp ur RIS box is to have the volumes split (OS on one channel and the RIS component on another channel) over the RAID controller.

8. And if u read Microsoft documentation before doing certification tests on Win2003 there is one golden rule:

"Add more RAM" - Adding RAM is never wrong!

[Cabales]

Thanks for your reply. I plan to use both 2003 and flat installs as opposed to RIPrep images, at least until I see how RIPrep images develop with the introduction of Vista. It's good to hear that the bandwidth utilization should not be an issue. Thanks for you help!

[Br4tt3]

The current design of what can be called RIS 2.0 from Microsoft, to support inhouse Win2003 deployment of Vista and later OS's is called WDS (Windows Deployment Services) an can be obtained from Microsoft as a beta software. Currently it is planned to be RTM upon release of the Vista OS flavours to companies... atleast when I spoke with my MS dude the last time!

WDS features converting riprep images into .wim which is the new image format for Vista. I have not used this feature as I personally think riprep is a pain in the a**, but maby it is something good anyway!

As long as ur network is fully switched, the load from an OS install to a client should not cause any issues for you..