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Software management is of vital importance to IT organizations and the enterprises they support. In today’s competitive global markets, even smallto-medium-sized companies need effective IT infrastructure to retain their competitive edge. An organization without a specific management strategy for distributing software risks the loss of valuable time, resources and revenue.
It is no secret in the IT industry that a high proportion of network and system failures result from planned software changes that go awry in some way. Alternately, poor software management also leads to a whole host of vulnerabilities and other related system problems, among them:
• Compliance failures, a consequence of ineffective controls that allow unauthorized access to data or configurations that violate licensing agreements;
• Security breaches that stem from malware, spyware, viruses and the holes created by unauthorized software installation, or from the simple failure to keep up with the influx of security patches;
• A negative impact on service, which arises from unplanned changes that cause application failures.
For organizations that support a large number of desktops and laptops, and even for those managing fewer machines, the task of manually distributing operating system or software upgrades, security patches, virus definitions, etc., can consume a considerable, if not prohibitive, number of work-hours. Rolling out new applications requires even more labor and resources. Additionally, manual software distribution and patch management are prone to human error, which greatly increases the potential for delays and user downtime.
Tellingly, 99% of all attacks on networks and systems come via known vulnerabilities. Though readily preventable, the gaping security holes often remain open for months after detection because IT personnel are typically too overloaded with other work to keep pace with the sheer volume of updates, upgrades and patches. The threat is clear but the time involved with manual updates makes it impossible for IT staff to keep up. One of the key reasons for implementing an automated software distribution solution is to increase operational efficiency by introducing new tools faster and more smoothly and thereby lowering the cost of owning computers. Because application installations, upgrades and configurations are critical aspects of the business process, companies and other organizations can benefit significantly from an automated solution by leveraging its many strengths to reduce costs and raise both productivity and creativity.
While it is clear that, for many small- and medium-sized enterprises and most large ones, automated software distribution is a great aid to maintaining an efficient, compliant and costeffective IT organization, it is equally clear that an automated system is particularly enhanced by a mechanism that can be managed from a central location. Such centralized management capabilities, ideally augmented by decentralized administrator options, allow a relatively small IT staff to exercise comprehensive control over even huge and widely dispersed networks. But centralized management is just one feature needed to ensure timely and dependable software delivery. Because copying files isn’t all that is called for. Target computers must be selected for distribution. Distributions must be made in specific ways to specific groups, and to mobile as well as desktop machines. Licenses must be tracked to ensure compliance. And so on.
For a software distribution solution to fully satisfy the needs of today’s demanding IT environments, it must also manage the software once it’s been delivered, which means it needs to incorporate a wide range of practical functions and features. These include:
• Ease of use - Cross-platform support
- Distribution targeting
- Distribution types
- Remote distribution
• Scalability/ Load balancing
• Time attributes
• Administrator/ user options - Simultaneous login by multiple administrators/ users
- Access privileges for each administrator/ user account
- Audit logging of administrator/user actions
- Self-healing
- Fault tolerance
• Installation status / Distribution and installation reporting
• Rollback provisions&nb
Simply put, an automated software distribution system should be trouble-free to install and should work without requiring a great deal of configuration. This applies to all network nodes where the product components need to be nstalled, which typically include at least one server in addition to the machines targeted for the distribution. Product documentation should combine with good intelligent design to make operation intuitive and straightforward. The user interface should transform the inherently complex process of delivering software across a network into a structured, clearly defined, task-oriented graphical display that is both easy to use and understand. It should provide sequential steps that build on preceding ones, supporting a well-conceived process that creates, verifies, tests, deploys, and monitors the distribution/installation by logically leading the user through each phase of it. Many software distribution applications are extensions of large enterprise network management applications that require companies to purchase and install expensive and complicated supplementary software, much of it unnecessary for software deployment. This complexity can needlessly increase training costs and dilute if not altogether negate the benefits of using the tool in the first place. The best means of judging a product’s user-friendliness and suitability is to obtain an evaluation copy of it and take it for a test drive. It is advisable, therefore, to seek out a solution that offers a free evaluation version which can be downloaded for such purposes.
In today’s heterogeneous IT environments, software distribution is made even more daunting by having to deal with different configurations on similar platforms. Of course, an effective tool must also be agnostic when it comes to delivery, capable of distributing software to client machines that run different operating systems. While being able to deliver a major software release over a vast client network is an important benchmark for a distribution tool, just as critical is how well the tool manages that distribution. Can it, for example, easily group together client machines on the basis of location or purpose, and then treat these groups as a single entity when setting up and executing a distribution? Can files with the same characteristics be readily administered as a group without having to go down to the single file level? Can the delivery be custom configured to send out a single application that has, say, certain fonts or other files left off to save hard disk space on certain clients’ computers? The ability to target a computer or groups of computers based on specific criteria is vital to deploying the correct applications. A targeting mechanism minimizes end-user headaches and produces a manageable support environment. This targeting ability also helps manage the costs associated with software licensing. If you’ve purchased 25 licenses of a certain application, you need to identify for the purposes of distributing it only those computers for which you purchased the licenses, and this capability also helps keep you in compliance with piracy laws. A distribution mechanism must also be able to handle the entire gamut of installations, among them: new applications, upgrades, application and operating system hot fixes, security patches, application and operating system service packs, and stock or custom scripts. In addition, remote control features, including the possibility of controlling or observing remote computer screens, are highly desirable for all systems administrators.&nb
A highly distributed, multi-layered architecture means large networks can be managed with minimal overhead, and allows a company’s software distribution solution to grow as the company itself grows and as its IT network branches out to serve new locations in different cities, perhaps on separate continents. In these situations, while delivery remains centrally controlled, distributed mechanisms that employ multi-layered architecture balance loads and operate with a sensitivity to network bandwidth, giving a company the ability to retrieve software from local or geographically close distribution points and ensuring that central servers or networks do not become overloaded.
Being able to leverage the existing LDAP infrastructure of an organization means that there is less maintenance and thus higher productivity. FileWave’s new feature called Smart Groups does this by giving you the ability to create groups that will dynamically update their content based on an expression that you define in the FileWave Admin GUI, for example, a group could be defined that contains only Windows machines, that are also in the ‘London Graphics’ LDAP group - and, in this case, its always kept in synch with your LDAP server. A big advantage of the Smart Groups feature is that its dynamic. Once the groups are defined, the FileWave client can automatically detect to which groups it belongs and update itself accordingly - downloading the Filesets associated with the groups to which it belongs (or vice versa, deleting the Filesets from groups to which it no longer belongs), so you don’t have to keep modifying the members of these groups as time goes on - its all done for you automatically by the FileWave infrastruc
An enterprise-wide distribution system is incomplete without a scheduling mechanism. Being able to specify when a delivery goes out to the employee population or when an update is activated, without having to manually initiate or monitor it, prevents bottlenecks from occurring during peak usage times and enables an administrator to give all employees access to the same application at once. The more precisely that a delivery, activation or deactivation time can be specified the better. There are benefits to being able to activate a new database exactly on May 15 at 6:45 a.m.
Multi-administrator/user accounts enable an organization that has different structural and/or political requirements – say, a company with offices in multiple cities that straddle widely different time zones – to manage its software distribution system at each location. A truly enterprise-level solution has the capacity to work in the majority of situations and environments, and multiadmin logins accommodate such needs.
An important issue with many patch deployment mechanisms is that they require the user to perform privileged actions, an undesirable state of affairs for both security and stability reasons. An automated distribution tool should offer account restrictions, which allows for the creation of users with different roles in the software delivery process and for use even by those without elevated privileges. By supporting user hierarchy, such a tool provides an extra layer of security for critical releases.
In the area of overview, the ability to review software that has been distributed, including such details as when and by whom the distribution was performed, is crucial to effective control. These audit capabilities are essential to satisfying Sarbanes-Oxley compliance. Designated staff members need to be able to examine completed software distributions via a secure interface. As corporate IT practices become more and more subject to internal and external audit controls, this capability assumes ever greater importance.
In today’s networks, applications and processing capabilities aren’t uniform. Delivering software to and installing it on multiple machines is made especially complex due to the varying operating systems/versions being run as well as the differing combinations of files that are scattered among the machines. Installing intelligent software on every target computer provides control over the individual machine environments. Such software agents run unnoticed in the background and communicate with server components of the distribution tool before, during and after a software distribution. Running an intelligent agent on each client machine is the surest way to protect and maintain the integrity of every single downloaded file, even if end users find ways to delete delivered software that has been installed. By regularly checking with the central server to ensure that all files intended to be present on the computer are indeed present, and unchanged, an intelligent agent can download them again if they are not.
When a software distribution is occurring in the first place, the intelligent agent is able to ensure that it is done successfully. If a network connection fails during the download or installation, or if the client machine, say, an itinerant device like a laptop, is off-line, the agent merely waits until the connection is reestablished and then resumes its work until the software is completely and accurately downloaded and installed.
In addition to knowing whether a distribution was successfully carried out, an automated delivery solution should provide a full picture about the status of the installation. A notification system needs to provide answers to essential questions should a problem occur, such as where it occurred and what was responsible for it.
Statistical data should also be available. Having information about the history of every delivery executed, whether it succeeded or failed, allows for better planning. Along with such data, distribution reports are practical for letting management know that their investment is being optimally utilized and providing value.
It sometimes happens that a software update is not be as good as touted, or another situation arises in which it’s necessary to fall back to a previous version of a new release. Ideally, an automated delivery system has archived the previous release on the target machines and held it there passively. By keeping track of what files were placed where, it can restore all the files to their original locations.
A centralized, automated software distribution solution is a critical management tool for a great majority of business and non-business organizations. Without the ability to mass distribute and manage software, organizations are a great disadvantage in preventing their computers from quickly becoming outdated and less secure. Managing the software distribution process by means of manual, piecemeal solutions significantly raises the cost of owning and operating technology.
Further, the cost of managing computers through manual processes continues to rise because of the frequency of updates and the ever-increasing need to combat vulnerabilities due to viruses and cyber terrorism.
We believe that FileWave offers a superior way of distributing and centrally managing your software, providing a highly functional and scalable solution that gives you complete control of your IT environment, whether it is based on Windows, Macintosh OS X or Linux. Easy to install and easy to use, it delivers state-of-the-art performance with an unrivaled set of innovative features.
When combined with our automated asset management and inventory tool FileWave Inventory, it greatly empowers your enterprise and is suitable, thanks to its highly distributed architecture, for nearly any size business, from small companies of 10 users up to the most widely dispersed global enterprise of tens of thousands of use.
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