Build and Test an Automated Install

Martin had included the client engineering team from the start, so a number of people from the group had been examining the biometric system software. This way, when it came time for an automated install, some thought had already been put into it.

Jason was starting to understand why each geographic region repackaged software from other regions . There were no common standards followed among these European sites, from the service packs on their machines to the domain infrastructure being used. When an automated install was built for one area, no one told the installers that the software needed to be installed as the default GINA module. Thus, the vendor software could not be activated. For the POC, it was practical to do software installation and configuration by hand, but it was no longer feasible for the pilot or deployment. The sheer number of desktops to be deployed prevented manual installs from being practical. Thus, an automated install method and distribution method had to be tested and used. Every major corporation already had in place a software distribution and installation system. The software portion of the biometric system needed to leverage this existing infrastructure. Thus, the software had to be packaged using installer software and prepared for distribution using the company's distribution system. This entailed many iterations of testing and refinement to get right. The pilot provided an opportunity to test what was believed to be the final version before deployment.

The Methodology

It is better to have the install fail on a couple of hundred desktops than on thousands or tens of thousands of desktops. In addition, by using the automated procedure during the pilot, any possible desktop configuration and already installed software issues can be identified and addressed. It goes without saying that an uninstall also needs to be possible. In the future, the software may need to be upgraded or removed if the pilot does not move ahead to deployment. If possible, a "cleaner" utility also needs to be created, which allows for the low-level removal of a product, even if it is not fully installed. It can stop running tasks and services and uninstall the software in a direct way from both the registry and the directory. Thus, this utility could be used when an install aborts in some way and the uninstall program will not run.