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Flexible Approach
That flexible approach served PWMA well when it was time to deploy the new image to all the desktops. Such flexibility, however, meant tackling the project a little differently. First, we needed to change our perspective although we had performed similar upgrades many times before. When once we had viewed the desktop image as a process, we now saw it as a product. Before we considered the image a single entity, we now viewed it as a jigsaw puzzle made up of pieces designed to precisely fit together—indeed, a more elemental approach. Furthermore, each piece of the puzzle needed to be packaged and deployed as needed.
Rather than a process that needs to be honed over time and machines, we viewed the desktop as a product. User testing and feedback, always a cornerstone of our work, was even more vital to designing, building, and refining the final product. Core applications, baseline desktop settings, security settings, patches, login scripts, etc—all those puzzle pieces—needed to be thoroughly developed and tested to ensure that not only would the final image would meet the needs of PWMA’s employees, but also be stable.
Therefore, the task befell us to efficiently develop each piece of the puzzle and have them packaged separately for deployment. We accomplished this through a high degree of automation, including custom programming and off the shelf systems management and programming software. This facilitated rapid prototyping, multiple beta tests, and quick delivery to the desktop. We could make quick changes to one piece of the puzzle without affecting others. This freedom allowed the client to request significant changes in the upgrade right up until deployment.
To be specific, SAGE separated the software from the settings on the desktop, creating flexibility and allowing deployment to be automated. A desktop image upgrade is more than just the operating system and software applications. It is also the environment—the settings, accounts, and templates—in which the software operates. Fine tuning aspects of the environment such as icons, screen resolution, power management, account and security settings can be a painstaking and time-consuming process. While the operating system and desktop software was decided upon early in the project, the environment changed often.
Our elemental approach allows changing the environment without affecting the software. While software would be installed on each desktop computer, the environment would be set when the user logged-in. When they did, programs we wrote generated the settings. A combination of computer management software like Microsoft’s Systems Management Server, applications like ScriptLogic, and custom automation allowed changes to be quickly implemented and deployed to the desktops. The end result is a computing environment for a large law firm that was quicker to deploy and much more stable.
An image, however, is evolving constantly. Patches, software updates, and users’ changing needs require that the image be easily updated and maintained. Our elemental approach addresses the fundamentally dynamic nature of the desktop image. We shared our knowledge and approach with PWMA’s staff, who are responsible for ongoing operation and maintenance, so they can update the image themselves. Quarterly updates are planned for the foreseeable future, but they have the capability to make ad hoc changes should some urgent need arise.
