Computer program deployment to one or more target devices

摘要

Each target device to which a full operating system (O/S) or other image is to be deployed using a deployment solution undergoes pre-O/S processing before booting into a temporary O/S, where preparatory processing includes a real-time hardware scan that generates a hardware device ID list that is compared to a driver repository accessed by the target device using a special communication channel between the target device and the driver repository. Drivers corresponding to listed hardware devices IDs are delivered to the target device and are staged by the target device before booting into a full O/S that installs the drivers. During full O/S operation post-deploy processing includes one or more additional real-time hardware scans performed to discover additional hardware devices missed in earlier scans, again with drivers delivered to the target device for installation.

主权项

1. A method for deploying a full operating system to each of a plurality of target devices on a network, the network comprising the plurality of target devices and a deployment device, the method comprising each target device in the plurality of target devices performing the following steps:
receiving a task sequence from the deployment device; executing tasks in the task sequence, execution of the task sequence tasks comprising:
booting into a temporary operating system;performing a preparatory process (UIUPrep) comprising:
performing a real-time UIUPrep hardware scan in the temporary operating system;generating a UIUPrep list of hardware device IDs based on the UIUPrep hardware scan;comparing the UIUPrep list of hardware device IDs to a plurality of drivers in a driver repository, the driver repository comprising a deployment device memory holding a database containing the plurality of drivers and being accessible to each target device in the plurality of target devices;receiving a UIUPrep driver set from the driver repository, wherein each driver in the UIUPrep driver set is correlated to at least one of the hardware device IDs in the UIUPrep list; andstaging each driver in the UIUPrep driver set; booting into the full operating system; installing each driver in the UIUPrep driver set; performing a post-deploy process (UIUPD) comprising:
performing a real-time UIUPD hardware scan while operating in the full operating system;generating a UIUPD list of hardware device identifications based on the UIUPD hardware scan, the UIUPD list comprising hardware IDs for hardware devices detected during the UIUPD hardware scan but not found in the UIUPrep hardware scan;comparing the UIUPD list of hardware device IDs to the plurality of drivers in the driver repository;receiving a UIUPD driver set from the driver repository, wherein each driver in the UIUPD driver set is correlated to at least one of the hardware device IDs in the UIUPD list; andstaging each driver in the UIUPD driver set; and booting into the full operating system and installing each driver in the UIUPD driver set.