Added Dell Shop Advantages
Dell KACE and Dell PCs and Servers: A Systems Management Advantage
While fully supporting heterogeneous operating systems and all computing platforms, Dell KACE Systems Management Appliances also offer specific features that make systems management even easier for organizations with Dell PCs and servers. Direct driver feeds, Dell’s OpenMange integration, and warranty information integration drive systems management productivity to a whole new level by liberating your organization from tedious IT tasks. KACE features specifically tailored for Dell PCs and servers helps accelerate automation and allows you to offload maintenance duties and align key talent with higher-value projects.
Automated Dell Software and Hardware Driver Feeds
The Dell KACE K Series Appliances automatically detect the brand and model of all hardware, peripheral devices and software drivers. The KACE K2000 Deployment Appliance now automatically imports Dell software drivers directly so that the latest drivers are always available. This minimizes the need for IT managers to hunt for drivers on the internet, saving them time and ensuring the appropriate driver is available for OS deployments. IT managers can easily control which drivers they want to import and implement through a simplified, web-based interface. This feature comes in particularly handy for Windows 7 migrations.
One potential pitfall of migrating to Windows 7 directly from XP is that both applications and hardware may not be compatible with the new OS. While applications often offer easily accessible patches for the new OS, hardware does not. IT managers are often left to manually hunt for hardware drivers, and with the reality of multiple, remote sites within growing organizations, the task becomes increasingly complicated. The integration of direct driver feeds from Dell with the K2000 simplify IT administration by providing a single, unified console to help deploy Windows 7.
Dell OpenManage™ Essentials
The K1000 integrates with Dell OpenManage Essentials (OME) to extend systems management to servers. The integration allows the K1000 to discover and inventory both clients and servers and also manage non-computing assets like printers, telephones, network switches etc. as part of the asset management feature. In addition to patching, software distribution, reporting and security vulnerability scanning for servers, the K1000 together with OME can now deploy OMSA agents, establish out-of-band connection to the servers, manage system configurations for servers, and monitor and create trouble tickets for critical server hardware events. Dell provides regular BIOS and device driver updates for Dell client and server systems. The KACE K1000 Management Appliance integrates with the Dell OpenManage agent and server to provide administrators the ability to implement policies for applying the Dell update packages easily and flexibly across all their Dell Windows systems.
The K1000 allows administrators to control different update policies for different populations of machines, such as providing automated updates of PCs and servers with schedules tied closely to PC and server maintenance windows. The integration between Dell OpenManage Essentials and KACE allows administrators to quickly confirm updates have rolled out successfully and that systems are in compliance. It also allows them to identify and remediate any systems where updates have failed.
Warranty Integration
The K1000 Management Appliance fully integrates with Dell warranty information. Dell shops no longer need to hunt down warranty information since it is seamlessly integrated into the UIs. IT administrators can easily see the shipping and warranty details of their Dell hardware. This feature allows IT administrators to ensure warranty compliance and address warranty service needs.
Configuration Services
The combination of Dell Configuration Services and the K2000 Deployment Appliance allow you to manage your Dell PC master images seamlessly between the Dell factory and your own environment. Custom images can be managed locally and shared with the factory. This ensures that when new PCs are ordered via Dell.com premier Web pages, or current PCs are reimaged, the specific image needed is delivered directly to you from the factory on the machine, ready to go. This enables you to provision new or upgraded systems to users faster and with fewer issues, save shipping costs, and to change out hardware for operating systems upgrades such as Windows 7. Your staff is then free to spend time on more strategic IT initiatives.