Installation Manager

Installation Manager

The Enterprise Edition of MetaFrame Presentation Server 3.0 comes with a utility that allows you to package and distribute an application automatically to several servers. This utility is similar in concept to the Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS). If you have 50 servers in your enterprise that host the same application, and the application vendor or in-house developers decide to release a service pack to address several issues, without this tool you would need to install the Service Pack 50 times.

Citrix Installation Manager alleviates this problem by allowing you to build a package known as an Application Deployment File (ADF). ADF is also the file extension of the packages that are built with Installation Manager. Also supported by Installation Manager are packages built as Microsoft Windows Installer (MSI) and Microsoft Windows Installer Patch (MSP) files. Installation Manager supports ADF MSI and MSP packages.

Installation Manager consists of the following three components :

• Packager is the utility that builds the ADF file, schedules the deployment of packages, and monitors the installation of the packages. Packager can also roll out MSI and MSP packages.

• Installer is a service installed by default on all Enterprise Editions of MPS and is the component of Installation Manager that allows packages to be installed on the server by the packager.

• Network Share is a location on the network, typically a file server where the packages are stored. This network share would need to be accessible by the servers.