Software Deployment

ADS - Are you referring to ADSI (Active Directory Service Interface)? If yes, here is an exerpt from Softricity SoftGrid® 4.0 Administration Training Guide, Module 2: Architecture:

SoftGrid Management Web Service

The SoftGrid Management Console [an MMC] communicates through the SoftGrid Management Web Service to gain access to the Data Store that resides on the SQL server. It is important to note that the SoftGrid Management Console does not directly access the Data Store and does not make any of the changes to it. It is the SoftGrid Management Web Service that acts as the intermediary between the SoftGrid Management Console and the Data Store. The SoftGrid Management Web Service uses an OLE DB connection to perform the actual read / write operations to the SQL server.

When an Administrator launches the SoftGrid Management Console and connects through the SoftGrid Management Web Service it must verify with the Account Authority Domain that the user is a member of the SoftGrid Administrators group. In order to accomplish this an ADSI (Active Directory Service Interface) connection is used to read the group membership properties of the user account.

Requirements:

- The SoftGrid Management Web Service is a web service and requires that IIS 5.0 or greater to be installed on the local machine.
- The SoftGrid Management Web Service uses the HTTP and HTTPS protocols. The default port is 80, but secure connections may be made over port 443 using HTTPS.
- The SoftGrid Management Web Service uses .NET Remoting to communicate with the SoftGrid Management Console and also requires .NET Framework 1.1 or greater.
- Because the SoftGrid Management Web Service will be performing actions against a SQL Server it requires MDAC 2.7 or greater to be installed locally.

Tech Tip:

Before using the SoftGrid Management Console for the first time you must ensure that the ASP.NET extension for the Internet Information Server hosting the SoftGrid Management Web Service is installed and set to “allow” on Windows 2003 Servers.

--- End of extract ---

2. You can assign AD groups to applications & probably is recommended for enterprise software distribution where licensing issues are covered or not an issue.

3. You can make .msi files / packages into sequenced packages - in fact, you may be able to a freeware tool to change existing .msi packages directly without a lot of additional work.

4. There isn't any hardware collections, but you can do customizable software utilization reports.

5. Yes - addressed above.

Do you have the Admin Guide addressed above? If may assist you or answer lots of questions.

i think he is referring to the ADS as in RIS2

ADS replaced RIS adding support for WIM format image deployment as well as applications.

not sure if it can integrate with Softgrid but my assumption would be that it can be.

No, I think OP refers to AD (Active Directory Services), the service that superseded RIS is called WDS (Windows Deployment Services); ADS you meant is/was the server deployment system, Automated Deployment Services, so it wouldn't make sense in context of SoftGrid..

To the original poster (repeating little bit what badshadd already stated):

1) AD is used as backend user-repository for SoftGrid and group is the only object-type SoftGrid understands as a authorization primitive for applications. And no, applications cannot be distributed via AD as AD is only capable of distributing MSI packages, you can use SMS as alternative to SoftGrid's native streaming (SoftGrid Server -> SoftGrid Client).

2) Group policies do not play any role in application distribution with SoftGrid, but you can manage your SoftGrid clients via GPOs using one of the unofficial Administrative templates (no official one available from MS).

3) No and no, SoftGrid uses it's own package format called SFT which is delivered via streaming or imported into client via shares in case of SMS connector. MSI can be used as source installation media when packaging SoftGrid packages ("sequencing").

4) No, SoftGrid is only for application delivery purposes, you have to use something else for other management tasks (SMS, Altiris, Tivoli, Wisdom.. you name it)

5) Yes, it's called SoftGrid Management Console, you can install it practically any machine you wish to as it connects to your SoftGrid infrastructure via HTTP .NET Remoting -server called SoftGrid management web service (on IIS machine of your choice).

/Kalle

hahahaha.. a lesson in the dangers of acronyms.

http://www.acronymfinder.com/af-query.asp?String=exact&Acronym=ADS