Desktop management is a constant challenge for most IT or call center managers. A new update, service pack or totally new version of operating system can cause headaches for even the most experienced IT professional. The challenges with provisioning new versions of operating systems for desktops haven’t changed over the years:

-Do update and what is the incentive? Why should I?
-When do I update?
-How do I update hundreds of workstations across multiple locations?
-How can I update without affective end user productivity?

With the recent release of Windows 7, many IT professionals are once again asking themselves these questions. Fortunately, there is a solution that you won’t loose any sleep over. Double-Take Flex technology has become a cost effective solution for provisioning and managing workstations as well as server images. It is incredibly more efficient than the old days of loading disc after disc for every single workstation in the company after hours. This process could take days if not weeks to completely upgrade and then that doesn’t even cover the time spend rolling back to a previous version should there be an issue. The great thing about using a Double-Take Flex solution to provision new workstations and servers is if there is a problem it is as easy as pointing the workload back to the original disc image to roll back. And this can be done on any scale from just a few workstations or server to hundreds at multiple locations.

Double-Take Flex is the latest cost-effective technology allowing customers to boot systems (desktops or servers) from images stored on industry-standard iSCSI storage area networks. Centralizing these workloads onto shared storage enables quicker provisioning, simpler migration and the ability to maintain operating systems and software on a handful of images rather than across hundreds or thousands of systems. It becomes a CIO’s dream and delivers significant lifecycle cost savings, improved data security, centralized management, minimal desktop support, support for current IT tools, and low deployment costs. Some of the features of Double-Take Flex solutions include:

-Booting Workstations and Servers from iSCSI SAN
-Centralized Data Center Management
-Simplified recovery

Booting Workstations and Servers from iSCSI SAN
Whether you’re managing desktops in a call center, a campus lab or general purpose business desktops, your challenges remain the same. What most IT managers would like to have is the centralized management capabilities of thin clients with the power and flexibility of a desktop. Double-Take Flex solutions provide the ability to completely remove the disk storage from your desktops and centralize it on your SAN. Then individual computer images or groups of images can be assigned with a provided selection menu to the desktops. This type of technology will help the rapid adoption of Windows 7 workstations because of the ease of use and ability to rapidly provision workstations and quickly roll back if needed. Double-Take Flex will work with existing x86 or x64 operating systems and applications so there isn’t a need to start over from scratch with a new platform. Simply transfer the existing images to your SAN and then assign them to the computer that needs them.

Another nice feature of Double-Take Flex is the ability to test new applications, updates and compatibility with new operating systems. With Double-Take Flex technology if there is an issue there is no need to spend hours trying to diagnose the problem, just reboot the desktop and the previous boot image is instantly restored to the pristine state before testing began. iSCSI boot images are stored in a read-only state and local processing power is used so the full compute power a desktop can be utilized rather than a wimpy thin terminal

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