Fog Follow Up

I just wanted to take a moment to follow up with my last post on using the Fog Project to image workstations.  My last post centered around the use of Fog on a private LAN.  However, you can also use Fog on your existing network.  You would just need to install it and tell it not to use a local DHCP server.  You would instead need to configure your existing DHCP server with the appropriate options to PXE boot the workstations on your network. 

You can also include the Fog agent on your image, so workstations can check in with the Fog server periodically for tasks that should be performed.  This is not limited to imaging tasks, either.  You can schedule software installations such as Microsoft Office using Fog "snap-ins".  You can even instruct the workstations to perform virus scans using ClamAV.  It is a full-featured imaging solution that rivals any that I've ever used before, including pricier options that companies tend to choose because they might not know about Fog.  It even has a mobile interface that you can access from your smart phone.

However, I wouldn't rely on Fog alone for your inventory purposes.  For that, I'd have to recommend OCS Inventory NG.  It's also a free product that reminds me a lot of Microsoft's SMS server.  It also uses an agent/server model.  It can be used to deploy software and to maintain a single place for storing hardware and software inventory.  If you need to know which workstations have a certain version of Office installed, for instance, you would only need to check in OCS Inventory to get that information.  Very nice when it comes time to evaluate all your software licenses.

I'm thinking about creating some how-to's and maybe some videos on how to get up and running with Fog and OCS Inventory NG.  I'll see what I can come up with and when I have something worthwhile I'll post it on this blog.