Dell Accelerates Windows 7 Deployment

On Friday, Dell will release the latest version (3.3) of the Kace K2000 Deployment Appliance, its Microsoft Windows 7 deployment and Windows XP migration product that will feature
policy-based migration, offline migration and continuous driver feed updates. Pricing starts at $4,500 for the first 100 nodes or $39,000 per appliance; educational pricing is also available.

Acquired by Dell in February, Kace currently has 2,300 customers and more than 1.2 million machines under management. Although Microsoft has extended XP support to 2014, Dell says the typical 14- to 18-month upgrade cycle means organizations should start their migration sooner rather than later.

The K2000 enhancements address many of the pain points associated with Windows 7 migration, from determining hardware and driver compatibility to backing up and transferring end-user data. It integrates with the Kace K1000 Management Appliance, which was enhanced in May and will get another refresh shortly, say Dell officials.

According to a new Dell survey, 71 percent of organizations plan to migrate to Windows 7 and 38 percent have already started. The company is betting that a solution that simplifies and speeds up the migration will draw strong interest.

Steve Brasen, senior analyst, Enterprise Management Associates, says the adoption is well under way. "Microsoft is currently seeing the fastest adoption of any OS in their history with Windows 7, and has achieved a 20 percent share of deployed desktops with the new platform within one year of its introduction. In comparison, Vista never achieved greater than 20 percent usage share in its entire history, so I believe the transition is already under way."Brasen says there are two primary drivers for Windows 7 adoption: end of life for Windows XP and XP application support. "Since most organizations never transitioned away from XP to Vista, those businesses will be at risk when Microsoft discontinues extended support for the aging platform in 2014," he says. "Of a more immediate concern, however, is that, increasingly, critical business applications are being developed that are not supported on XP. This trend will undoubtedly accelerate during the next year, so organizations that have successfully migrated to Windows 7 will be much more agile in their ability to introduce new applications and services."

As far as the enhancements to the K2000, Brasen believes the policy-based migration capability is most significant. "The most challenging aspect of broad migration is simply the fact that end user requirements are not all the same. Different user roles require different end-point configurations, and one-size-fits-all deployment images are both wasteful and inefficient."

With the new Kace functionality, IT administrators can provide end users with the most appropriate applications and settings while ensuring they are not violating any established restrictions, says Brasen. "This significantly simplifies the process of ensuring both the security and cost-effectiveness of the managed endpoints. Simply associate an end user with an already prepared policy and initiate the migration. Time-consuming reviews and set-ups to meet each individual user requirements are no longer necessary."

The only thing missing from the appliance is specific support for blade servers, says Brasen. "Certainly Dell has the platform knowledge to make that work, and the Kace appliance is more than capable of providing the automation. I see this as a critical step to moving the solution from primarily supporting client workstations to being a full end-to-end management platform that also includes support for data center resources."