[wpkg-users] creative ideas to spread out the running of wpkg installs?

[Tomasz Chmielewski]

> Friends,
>
> Wpkg is a great product, but it doesn't come without it's own dangers
> and traps.
>
> One of the traps is that in order to make sure the wpkg installs get
> pushed out inside a reasonable timeframe, I opted to setup a scheduled
> task that restarts the wpkg service every two hours. Turns out that can
> be more problematic than I was expecting.
>
> The other day I was adding "adobe reader 8.1" to our sites main profile.
>
> The result was that ~ 70 PCs were trying to download and install a >=
> 90MB file from the server. This gave me an average uptime of around 30+
> for about 2 hours. Basically the install processes were slowing each
> other down so much, that users couldn't work on the PCs. We had to go
> running around and start switching about 50 - 70% of the PCs off. For
> the remaining started installs to finnish. But this created 2 hours of
> chaos and almost unuesable workstations.
>
> The server isn't really underspeced and has not ever shown signs of
> slowing down any other time, under normal usage and loads.

How much RAM does the server have? What OS is the server running?

If the file is just 90 MB, it should have been cached to RAM, and served to the clients from RAM.

I normally install programs that are even 1GB big, + the whole operating system, and the whole operation takes about 1-2 hours for ~40 workstations.

So I can only suspect your server is misconfigured in some bad way.


The idea of having a central program monitoring all client requests may sound fine, but is totally unrealistic (at least, with the manpower we have).

No such thing exists in Unattended, or Windows' RIS.


-- 
Tomasz Chmielewski
http://wpkg.org




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