[FEATURE REQUEST] Migration tool for refreshes [UPDATE]

[donmontalvo]

One of the biggest reasons companies buy JAMF Casper Suite is for imaging. A tool that is really needed during workstation refresh is a migration tool. Apple's Migration Assistant falls short...and I think we've all lost hope that Apple will devote any resources to building new enterprise tools. The tool needs to be able to:

1. Migrate user and network settings to an external drive or server volume (from the old computer) 2. Restore user and network settings from an external drive or server volume (to the new computer)

Some current implementations...

Microsoft has their User State Migration Tool (USMT)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_State_Migration_Tool
"Microsoft command line utility program to copy user files and settings from one Microsoft Windows computer to another. It is intended mainly for IT professionals to use in scripted migrations of bigger corporate installations."

Absolute Software has Live Image
http://www.absolute.com/en/products/absolute-manage/features.aspx
"Deploy a disk image while a computer is in use and automatically migrate user folders, network settings and Directory Access settings with no interruption to users."

Filewave
http://www.filewave.com/fileadmin/PDF/Imaging%20Overview%20and%20Quick%20Start.pdf
"User accounts may be preserved in Leopard to Leopard and Tiger to Tiger imaging scenarios"...[/UPDATE]I just got confirmation that Leopard > Snow Leopard in place upgrades are also supported.[/UPDATE]

PS, I BCC'd JAMF Software... :)

Thanks,
Don

[tlarkin]

Why not use portable home directories? They will synchronize home folders from network storage and when you need to wipe and reload when the user logs back in they sync their account. Unfortunately there is no sync in the background option though, so if they have a ton of stuff initial log in will take as long as the file transfer.

Also, you can already do this with a set of scripts and the Casper tools. Since data back up is such a diverse thing and is changed on a need basis by each institution I don't see the reason for Jamf to do this. Other than perhaps supply some generic back up scripts in the resource kit.

Some customers will just want to back up ~/Documents, some will want all the data, some will want all the data and all the hidden files (dot files, ie .bashrc and such), so at that point they are writing a massive back up tool to be customized.

Plus with a default script you would just fill in the blanks, but customize it to your needs.

just my 2 cents

-Tom

[andyinindy]

I respectfully disagree, Thomas.

Having a built-in means of backing up user data prior to imaging and restoring it post-imaging would be very helpful for us. The current situation with Migration Assistant is not enterprise grade, and requires manual labor on each machine.

Something as simple as a prebuilt script that could be dropped into a workflow would be OK, but it would be nicer if it did a full "diff" between the user's drive and a clean OS image so that we could move apps.

I will add this as a new feature request, being sure to reference Don's original post.

--Andy

[bentoms]

Sadly PHD's are not feasible on my environment.

As such I'd like to see what's being requested here.

Currently, i'm looking at a way of having a users partition.