HP Client Manager

In setting up a number of training and lab environments, along with advising others on production deployments, a collection of thoughts and tools have come to mind relating to the optimal client environment for provisioning Intel® vPro™ using Altiris Client Management Suite.

In our district we have a 5 year "end of life cycle" on HP Client workstations. We need to be very diligent to keep an up to-date inventory of all hardware in order to know where this equipment is and when it is time to replace it. It can be very difficult (not to mention time consuming) to keep our inventory error free with the old "paper and pencil" method of inventory.

Our company has two wireless signals, one "Public" and "Private". The public signal has a simple SSID and no security, so naturally, users jump on it first.

Management began to notice that laptops that were docked and connected to the LAN, were also connecting to the Public wireless for a variety of reasons, sometimes inappropriate. They came to us to ask what we could do about it.

At our school district we basically breath HP. Our computers, printers, switches and servers are all HP because we want to be the best, and to be the best you have to have the best. We do all of our computer imaging and software deployment through Altiris Deployment Server. We have been using Altiris Deployment Server for the past five years and have had such good success with it. Like most places, we have an understaffed IT department, so it is crucial to have a software package like Deployment Server in place.

For those users migrating to a Hardware Independent Image, there are many "gotchas" that can slow you down. Getting one of the many tools available to help institute this process is a good start. Below is some information as this relates to HP Desktops and Laptops.