New implementation/install Check list on where to start?

Hey John,
I'm in the exact same boat. I'm at the very, very beginning and have been looking for a kind of "getting started" guide myself. I'll forward you any information I can find that would be helpful and would appreciate if you could also. Good luck to us both!

You can go to Altiris' Knowledgebase and search for the following Articles:

https://kb.altiris.com
Article ID: 28249
Article ID: 1817

On the Solution Sam site there is a Install Helper you can run on the Windows Server before you try and install your Notification Server. (It is close to the bottom).

http://www.solutionsam.com/solutions/6_0/

You mention "Altiris" but that is a very generic term for 50 different products - each with a different purpose. So I would first ask - what are you trying to accomplish?

Did you purchase a suite? Like CMS? or TMS? Or did you just buy a single product like Helpdesk?

The best advice I could give you on a forum would be this:

Start with Inventory Solution.

Install a Notification Server.
Rollout the Altiris NS Agent on all of your computers
Turn on Inventory Solution.

Once you have Inventory coming back from your environment, begin by just running reports from the Notification Server to figure out what you've got. You'll be amazed at what's really out there in terms of software, configuration, hardware, etc.... then from these reports make lists of the things that are "wrong" or "out of compliance" in your environment.

Once you have a list, start looking at how the other Altiris products you purchased can help address the problems. And begin rolling those solutions out.

But go slow.

Do NOT turn on everything at once.

After you've gathered inventory, the next big step is usually to tackle provisioning - ie desktop imaging.

I posted a step-by-step guide to building your first image on this website:
http://juice.altiris.com/article/4223/windows-xp-s...

That will get you going on deploying images using Altiris (assuming you are not rolling out Vista)

Then you might move to other big picture items like Patch Management or Application Metering - but like I said before - everything begins with Inventory Solution.

Thanks for the response vortexx. To clarify my situation: Our college has purchased around 500 licenses for the "Deployment Solution for Clients" product. We have many campuses spread around the county, each with high-speed WAN links. There are around 3,000 computers, 2/3 lab PCs, 1/3 staff and faculty PCs.

We have a brand new server and I'm starting from absolute scratch. I've got 6 weeks to get a pilot up and running or I think they'll refuse to renew the licenses for next year. Right now I'm limiting my focus to our main campus, and only the lab PCs. Our goal is to absolutely be done with manually updating each lab with new software every semester. Much later I'll look at the WAN campuses and Faculty/Staff computers if it lasts that long.

So right now managment's interest is limited to the Deployment Solution only. I have attended the DS Foundation course, but that was last October (not to mention the course seemed so disorganized) so I'm hazy. I'm reading through the NS and DS manuals and things still aren't clear as far as a course of action. And unfortunately I have very little knowledge of SQL.

I would be extremely grateful if others could chime in with their thoughts to answer a few questions.

Should I install NS if all we've bought so far is DS? I do want to exploit Altiris for everything I can during this pilot - so if NS can provide many more features than just installing DS on a server I'd be for that.

There is a slight possibility that we could add solutions later, if I install DS on the server now, is it possible to install NS later?

My Main Question: If I install NS, can I install DS on the same server? (we've only got one) Do they share the same database? Is that highly NOT recommended?
Will performance be extremely degraded? If both are installed can I mostly ignore the NS stuff and use the Deployment Console most of the time?

Thanks everyone very much for any help and tips you can provide. I know I've asked a lot so feel free to only comment on one question.

I promise to give back to the community once I've learned enough to contribute! :)

We used to have around 2000 clients connected to NS and DS on the same server. It ran OK. Our database was on a different server which did slow it down some. At the time we had CMS level 1 which added even more stress, but honestly I think NS used more of the resources than DS. I said used to because we have now gone to NS on a physical server and DS on a virtual and it is running just fine. Some others may be able to give you more of a technical answer, I was just giving you an answer from our experience.