User guide
Table Of Contents
- 1 Introducing Acronis Snap Deploy 5
- 1.1 Overview
- 1.2 What's new in Acronis Snap Deploy 5
- 1.3 What you can do with Acronis Snap Deploy 5
- 1.3.1 Taking an image of the master system
- 1.3.2 Deployment to specific machines (immediate, manual, and scheduled deployment)
- 1.3.3 Deployment to any ready machines (event-driven deployment)
- 1.3.4 Stand-alone deployment
- 1.3.5 Deployment with individual deployment settings
- 1.3.6 User-initiated deployment (custom deployment)
- 1.3.7 Deployment of a disk volume and MBR
- 1.3.8 Command-line mode and scripting under WinPE
- 1.4 Features of Acronis Snap Deploy 5
- 1.4.1 List of machines
- 1.4.2 List of deployment tasks
- 1.4.3 Per-deployment licensing
- 1.4.4 Support for the VHD format
- 1.4.5 Graphical user interface in WinPE
- 1.4.6 E-mail notifications about deployment
- 1.4.7 Compatibility with images created by other Acronis products
- 1.4.8 Support for multiple network adapters
- 1.4.9 Multicast TTL and network bandwidth throttling
- 1.4.10 Falling back to unicast
- 1.4.11 Encrypted communication
- 1.4.12 Password protection
- 1.5 Supported operating systems for imaging and deployment
- 1.6 Licensing policy
- 1.7 Upgrading to Acronis Snap Deploy 5
- 1.8 Technical Support
- 2 Understanding Acronis Snap Deploy 5
- 3 Getting started with Acronis Snap Deploy 5
- 4 Installation of Acronis Snap Deploy 5
- 4.1 Supported operating systems
- 4.2 System requirements
- 4.3 Used ports and IP addresses
- 4.4 Typical installation
- 4.5 Custom installation
- 4.5.1 Installation procedure
- 4.5.2 Common installation configurations
- 4.5.3 Installation of components
- 4.5.3.1 Installation of Acronis Snap Deploy 5 Management Console
- 4.5.3.2 Installation of Acronis Snap Deploy 5 License Server
- 4.5.3.3 Installation of Acronis Snap Deploy 5 OS Deploy Server
- 4.5.3.4 Installation of Acronis PXE Server
- 4.5.3.5 Installation of Acronis Wake-on-LAN Proxy
- 4.5.3.6 Installation of Acronis Snap Deploy 5 Management Agent
- 4.6 Other ways of installation
- 4.7 Upgrading Acronis Snap Deploy 5
- 4.8 Uninstalling Acronis Snap Deploy 5
- 5 Using Acronis Snap Deploy 5 Management Console
- 6 Using Acronis Snap Deploy 5 License Server
- 7 Deployment tools
- 8 Creating a master image
- 9 Validating a master image
- 10 Deploying a master image
- 10.1 Files supported as master images
- 10.2 Licenses for deployment
- 10.3 Deployment templates
- 10.4 Deployment through a deployment task
- 10.5 Stand-alone deployment
- 10.6 User-initiated deployment (custom deployment)
- 10.7 Deploying BIOS-based systems to UEFI-based and vice versa
- 11 Managing the list of machines (the Machines view)
- 12 Individual deployment settings
- 13 Managing deployment tasks (the Deployment tasks view)
- 14 Command-line mode and scripting under WinPE
- 15 Collecting system information
50 Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2014
Note: If you have already installed a license server that came with another Acronis product, you will still need to
install Acronis Snap Deploy 5 License Server. You can install both license servers on the same machine. The
machine will then act as a common license server for all Acronis products.
After installation, Acronis Snap Deploy 5 License Server launches automatically as a Windows service.
When installing Acronis Snap Deploy 5 License Server, you can add the license keys to it. You can add
license keys at a later time, either by using the management console (p. 59) or in the command-line
mode (p. 61).
4.5.3.3 Installation of Acronis Snap Deploy 5 OS Deploy Server
Acronis Snap Deploy 5 OS Deploy Server is a component that performs centralized deployment
through the network with the help of bootable components called agents.
Before installing Acronis Snap Deploy 5 OS Deploy Server, you need to install Acronis Snap Deploy 5
License Server (p. 49) and import license keys to it. You can install both servers on the same machine.
If Acronis Snap Deploy 5 License Server is not installed on the machine where you are installing
Acronis Snap Deploy 5 OS Deploy Server, the setup program will ask you to specify a license server.
Browse to the server, or enter its name or IP address.
Note: We recommend specifying the license server by its machine name. If you specify the license server by its IP
address, Acronis Snap Deploy 5 OS Deploy Server will not be able to find the license server if this address
changes.
There is one exception to this recommendation: if your license server machine has non-English characters in its
host name, you need to specify license server by IP address. Currently Unicode is not supported in Acronis Snap
Deploy 5 communication between components, so Acronis Snap Deploy 5 OS Deploy Server will not be able to
resolve the license server name properly if it contains non-English characters (i.e. if it contains Unicode
symbols).
Installation of the deployment server does not decrease the number of licenses. The software just
checks the availability of the licenses and stores the specified parameters of Acronis Snap Deploy 5
License Server to be able to access the license server at the time of deployment.
Important: If you are planning to use more than one deployment server, make sure that each particular
machine is deployed only by one of them. Otherwise, each deployment server may use a separate license for the
machine.
4.5.3.4 Installation of Acronis PXE Server
Acronis PXE Server allows network booting of the target machines for performing deployment.
Using Acronis PXE Server considerably reduces the time required for booting the machines as
compared to using bootable media. It also eliminates the need to have a technician onsite to install
the bootable media into the system that must be booted. This allows for unattended scheduled
deployment.
Using Acronis PXE Server makes sense if there is a Dynamic Host Control Protocol (DHCP) server in
your network, so that the machines can automatically obtain IP addresses at boot. Without a DHCP
server, you cannot boot machines from PXE.
We recommend that you have only one PXE server within a subnet to ensure predictability of the
booting machines’ behavior.