ZENworks uses Tiered Electronic Distribution to distribute Application objects to other locations in the same tree or other trees. Using a Desktop Application Distribution, the original files associated with the applications are copied to the appropriate server locations where they can be used to locally service user groups and workstation groups associated with the distributed Application objects.
To distribute applications created in ZfD, you use the ZfS Desktop Application Distribution Wizard to configure the Distribution. This includes:
To create a Desktop Application Distribution using the wizard, continue with Creating the Distribution.
Fulfill all of the requirements listed under Requirements.
In ConsoleOne, right-click the container where you want the Distribution object located > click New > click Object > select TED Distribution > click OK.
Enter a name for the Distribution.
IMPORTANT: Periods (.) are not allowed in Distribution names. Instead, use dashes (-) or underscores (_) as word separators. If you use a period in the Distribution name, the Distribution will not be sent, and the Distributor will not reload after it has been exited.
To give a Distributor ownership of the Distribution, browse and select the Distributor object > click Define Additional Properties > click OK.
The Distribution object's properties are displayed.
Click the General tab > fill in the Settings fields:
Active: Required. In order to make a Distribution available to Subscribers, it needs to be active.
Use Digests: Digests are used by Distributors and Subscribers to verify that Distributions have not been tampered with while in transit. The digest provides an ND5 checksum for the Subscriber to compare.
Digests also detect corruption in a Distribution's package. If corruption is present, the Subscriber renames the distfile.ted Distribution file to distfile.corrupt and the Distribution is rebuilt and sent the next time the Channel's schedule fires.
Encrypt: You can have the Distribution encrypted if you will be sending it across non-secured connections. Encryption provides security for the Distribution during transit between the Distributor and Subscriber when they are not within the same firewall. Click either Strong or Weak encryption.
You also must have the same version of NICI 2.4 installed to each of these servers for encryption to work (see Installing NICI 2.4).
Maximum Revisions: This number helps you to control disk space usage by determining how many versions of a particular Distribution are kept in the Distributors' and Subscribers' working directories. The default is 10. Increase the number if data is changing often and the changes are minimal (smaller delta files). Decrease the number if data is not changing very often, or if a significant amount of data is changing (larger delta files). If you select 1, the Delete Previous Revision field will be checked.
Delete Previous Revision Before Receiving Next: This option is available if you selected 1 as the number for the Maximum Revisions field. If the Distribution is so large that it might compromise the available disk space on the Subscriber server, you can conserve disk space by checking this option, which causes the previous version to be deleted before receiving the next version. If you leave the check box empty, the new version is received in its entirety before the older version is deleted. Either way, you have only the one version of the Distribution in the Subscriber's working directory after the Distribution has been received.
Priority: You can give the Distribution a priority that determines how it is sent in relation to other Distributions. A High priority means it is sent before Medium or Low priority Distributions.
Distributor: Displays the DN of the Distributor object that builds and sends this Distribution. You selected the Distributor when you created the Distribution object.
Description: Provide useful details about the Distribution, such as the name of the desktop application, the files and directories it contains, intended user groups, and so on.
Click the General tab > click Restrictions.
You can select whether to have platform restrictions for the Distribution itself. This is not a restriction for the distributed Application object.
No Restrictions: This option is checked by default. To determine platform restrictions, click this radio button to disable it > click the check boxes corresponding to the platforms you want to receive this Distribution.
Platforms with check boxes are not checked cannot receive the Distribution. In other words, you restrict sending to a platform by disabling the No Restrictions option and not selecting the platform.
The available options are:
No Restrictions |
NetWare 5.1 |
Solaris |
NetWare All |
NetWare 5.x |
Linux |
NetWare 4.x (ZfS 2) |
NetWare 6.x |
|
NetWare 5.0 (ZfS 2) |
Windows Server |
|
No Restrictions means that the Distribution can be sent to any platform.
If you select NetWare All, you do not need to select any of the individual NetWare platforms.
Click the Type tab > in the Select Type drop-down box, select Desktop Application > click Setup.
The Desktop Application Distribution Wizard is started.
You can also start this wizard from the Desktop Application Agent properties page by clicking Modify.
Click Next after reading the Introduction information.
Fill in the fields > click Next.
Maintain Source Tree Structure: Duplicates the source tree's structure at the destination's location (the target Subscriber's working context) for placing the distributed application objects. If you will be selecting chained applications, you must check this option.
For more information, see Maintaining Source Paths.
Maintain Associations: Distributes the associated groups or containers at the target location if they do not exist. However, users or workstations contained in the groups or containers in the source location are not distributed.
For more information, see Maintaining Associations When Distributing Objects.
You must enable this option if you have chained applications in the Distribution. For more information, see Chained Applications in Distributions.
IMPORTANT: Rights previously set in the associated user/workstation groups or containers that are maintained are not distributed, but set to the minimum necessary in the distributed groups or containers so that users can use the applications.
Source Root Container: Select a container to be used as the root container for the golden application objects to be distributed. You should only select golden Application objects from this root container and its subordinate containers.
Load Balance and Fault Tolerance Support: Choose whether to use automated load balancing, fault tolerance, or neither:
Load Balance: Automates spreading server workloads over the servers being used for the Desktop Application Distributions. The functionality of fault tolerance (redundancy) is automatically accomplished through load balancing.
Fault Tolerance: Allows a server being used for Desktop Application Distributions to assume the distribution duties of another server that goes down. Fault Tolerance does not provide load balancing.
None: Neither option is applied. You must individually configure each distributed Application object for load balancing or fault tolerance, if you want that support on an individual basis.
For these two features to work:
Depending on the selected options, the Load Balancing or Fault Tolerance pages are populated with the file locations on all servers that share this working context.
For more information, see Distributed Applications in ZfS.
Click Add to browse for and select golden Application objects > click Next.
Do not browse above the root directory that you established in the previous wizard page, especially if you have checked the Maintain Source Tree Structure option.
IMPORTANT: The Desktop Application source files must reside in the Distributor server's file system. The Distribution cannot be gathered from another server's file system.
Enter the destination volume or shared folder.
The application files distributed are those that are associated with the golden Application objects you selected in the previous wizard page.
You can enter a variable instead. If you use a variable, it must be defined in the destination Subscriber server's properties to point to the target server's volume or shared folder.
This volume (NetWare) or shared folder (Windows) becomes the root location for placing subordinate directories where the application files will be copied.
To use only an application's default path, click Default Application Directory Path, which is placed beginning with the root location you specified in Step 7.d.
or
To enter a user-defined directory path to the application's files, click User-Defined Directory Path > enter your path information.
The path you specify is used in the following manner:
The result is a customized directory path that begins with the volume or shared folder, has your user-defined path information next, and ends with the application's immediate directory. For example, the default path to the application's executable file (APPLICATION.EXE) might be:
\Application_Root_Directory\Application_Subdirectory
and you enter MyPath for your user-defined path, the new full path to the executable will now be:
C:\MyPath\Application_Subdirectory\APPLICATION.EXE
where you entered C: as the shared folder, MyPath as your user-defined path, Application_Root_Directory is replaced by MyPath, and Application_Subdirectory is the immediate parent directory to the executable, APPLICATION.EXE.
Click Next to continue.
The Summary page is displayed.
To make changes, click Back.
When you have finished configuring the Distribution object, click Finish to exit the wizard.
You can edit the Distribution at any time on the Type tab of the Distribution object by clicking Modify.
Click the Channels tab > click Add > browse for and select the Channel for this Distribution.
Each Distribution must be associated with at least one Channel if it is going to be used to push data to a Subscriber. A Distribution is sent to all Subscribers that are subscribed to the selected Channel.
Click the Schedule tab > select a Build schedule:
Click Apply to create the Distribution.
You are prompted to copy additional security certificates.
Click Yes to resolve the certificates.
This copies the security certificates from the Distributor to Subscriber subscribed to the Channel.
For information, see Resolving Certificates.
Click OK to close the Distribution object.
The next time the Distributor reads eDirectory (this schedule is set in the Distributor object's properties), it retrieves all of the information about the new Desktop Application Distribution, such as Distribution details, the Build schedule, and so on.
The Distribution is built according to the Build schedule, sent according to the schedule set in the Channel object, and extracted according to schedule set in the Subscriber object.
If the Distributor throws an exception during the file gathering process, the Distribution is not built. The Distributor logs the failure in the reporting database.
If the Subscriber throws an exception during extraction, the process is not completed. The Distributor receives this information from the Subscriber and logs the failure in the reporting database.
After extraction, ZfD users whose objects are located in the associated containers, or are members of a distributed group, will have access to the desktop applications that were distributed.
IMPORTANT: For Desktop Application Distributions, a built-in delay exists to accommodate directory synchronization when you have multiple applications being distributed at the same time (whether by one or multiple Distributions).
Subscribers can receive Desktop Application Distributions all at the same time, but extract them one at a time. And, when there are multiple applications contained in one Distribution, the Subscriber creates the distributed Application object and copies the files one application at a time. The built-in delay helps directory synchronization for the newly-created Application objects to occur smoothly.
To determine how much additional time this built-in delay might add to the distribution process, multiply each application contained in a Desktop Application Distribution by 30 seconds.
As a rule of thumb, if an application being distributed includes multiple versions, such as one baseline and two deltas, each of these three versions receives the same 30-second delay. For example, if you are sending 10 desktop applications, and each has three versions, the completion of the Distribution extractions would take at least 15 minutes.
So that Desktop Management users and workstations can have automatic access to their applications from any geographic location, you must link up the site lists:
Wait for the Desktop Application Distribution to be distributed and extracted by each Subscriber server that received it, because the distributed Application objects must be created and the application's files installed before you can link up the site lists.
In ConsoleOne, right-click the golden Application object that was used to build the Distribution > click Properties.
Click the Distributions tab > click the Link Up Site Lists button.
All distributed Application objects that were created from the golden Application object are displayed in the Replicated Applications list box, and all Distributions containing the distributed Application objects are listed in the Distributions Currently In list box.
What the Link Up Site List button does:
Thus, the golden Application object and all distributed Application objects have each other listed in their Replicated Applications list box, which allows users to have local access to the same application no matter where they connect to their network.
Click OK to close the golden Application object's properties.
Repeat Step 13.b through Step 13.d for each golden Application object that was used to build the Desktop Application Distribution.
You only need to perform the site list link-up on the golden Application objects.