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

[Michael Chinn]

One solution I used when rolling out a 40mb module was use a 2 stage 
loader/installer with wpkg. Our reason was to cater for field operators 
who only connect for short periods then go away for weeks at a time.
eg:-
Package Loader - Copies the installer to the machine using something 
like Robocopy, stores it in %windir%\temp, tests for file on succeed
Package Installer - Depends on Loader, runs installer from %temp%, tests 
for program installation, if space is an issue deletes zip file from 
temp and creates a 0 length package.zip so that loader doesnt repeat

One of the benefits of robocopy is you can control the download rate and 
retry on fail.

-- 
Michael Chinn
User Support Officer - Information Technology

Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority
PO Box 1379
TOWNSVILLE, QLD 4810

Ph 07 47500874 Fax 07 4772 6093
michaelc at gbrmpa.gov.au 

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Urs Rau wrote, On 19/07/2007 18:45:
> 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.
>
> Does anybody have any clever or creative ideas on how to avoid this sort
> of overload? Maybe having a central file that monitors requests that the
> wpkg service want's to launch and a service that monitors sensible loads
>  and tells the wpkg service on the workstations to delay until it thinks
> the server load allows for more processes?
>
> How have others worked around this?
>
> The thought of installing MS .Net frameworks or MS office pkgs using
> wpkg now seems really frightening.
>
> Thanks for any suggestions or poiters.
>
>   


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